


Gates of Hell

by alienqueequeg



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Body Horror, Case Fic, Corruption, F/M, Horror, Kidnapping, MSR, Medical Experimentation, Medical Torture, Mystery, Post-Cancer Arc (X-Files), Post-Episode: s05e01-02 Redux, Post-Resolved Sexual Tension Tension, Pre-X-Files, Rabies, Resolved Sexual Tension, Serial Killer, Smut, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-06
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:53:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 16
Words: 41,799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27897124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alienqueequeg/pseuds/alienqueequeg
Summary: In the first case after her remission from cancer, Scully is forced to confront a disturbing time in her past. Ten bodies are found buried outside an abandoned hospital in Northern California, all desecrated in a way that is reminiscent of horrifying medical experiments that took place there almost fifty years ago. While navigating the complexities of a changing relationship, Scully and Mulder work to uncover a long-buried evil and hope to solve a cold case that has haunted Scully for years.CW: violence, death, medical stuff, smut
Relationships: Fox Mulder/Dana Scully
Comments: 34
Kudos: 63
Collections: X-Files Case File Fanfic Exchange (2020)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fragilevixen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fragilevixen/gifts).



> For Jeri, who gave me the prompt:  
> An abandoned hospital. Serial slayings - victims posed like former patients. A seemingly, invisible killer. Go dark with this one, would love a little Agent(s) in Peril and paranormal intimations.
> 
> I'm so sorry this is so late! I LOVE your prompt, and I was actually crossing my fingers I would get it. I've been working on it since day one, but life and *gestures vaguely at everything* just decimated me creatively this year. It's only recently started turning out the way I liked, and I really wanted to do your prompt justice.

Silverwood General Hospital

May 23, 1997

Crossed beams from stacked flashlights bisected the morgue. Moonlight leaked in through the tiny window, reflecting on the autopsy table and Ellen’s bare skin. Cool steel warmed where she touched it, and she wondered if it had ever before felt living flesh.

The room was appropriately silent except for their profane panting breaths. As Scott pumped into her from behind, Ellen made all the right sounds, but she felt disconnected from her body, on auto-pilot. That was almost as unsetting to her as the hospital. The last few times they’d gotten carried away in their urban exploration adventures, she couldn’t believe how fast she got off. Tonight she was numb and distracted.

Maybe it was how the building didn’t feel abandoned. The autopsy tables gleamed, clean enough that she and Scott were compelled to fuck on them instead of against the wall. She felt certain the sink would work if either of them tried it. She had expected the tiles to be discolored, the walls to sport mysterious stains. At the very least, the room should be covered in a layer of grime.

From what they’d seen, the entire hospital was perfectly preserved. The lobby had a complete absence of graffiti or any of the usual detritus of abandonment, its chairs neatly aligned as if waiting to be filled by patients. The ceilings were cobweb-free; even spiders seemed to avoid the place. Hell, the whole hilltop was bare of plants and trees, like it received a buzzcut that never grew out.

And there was something else that set her lizard brain on edge, a prickle at the nape of her neck warning her that someone was watching her. They’d broken into numerous abandoned buildings, but this was the first time she actually felt like she was trespassing. 

Ellen could tell Scott was close from the urgency of his thrusts and the way he dug his fingers into the meat of her thighs. Despite her instinct to be quiet, she moaned louder to encourage him to finish. It worked, and he let out a low, satisfied groan as he came, holding the moment. 

“Jesus, baby,” he breathed. “You’re so good.”

“Mm.” Ellen couldn’t bring herself to play along anymore and slipped away from him. When they were back in the safety of their tent, she would initiate a round two. She was eager to purge the peculiar feeling from the hospital and the disconnected sex. 

For now, all she could think about was getting dressed and getting the hell out of this building. She fumbled in the shadows for the pile of clothes left on the other autopsy table, hyper-aware of her nakedness. The cold air felt like an assault on her bare skin. As she pulled on her clothes, Scott babbled about the pictures he’d taken and how he couldn’t wait to share them on the forums. 

“That picture of the operating room with all the equipment!” he gushed. “This place is even better than I could have imagined.” 

_Thump_. A sound like soft weight on metal.

She jumped, her hand flying to her mouth.

“What is it?” Scott asked as he knotted the condom.

“You didn’t hear that?” she whispered.

He shook his head guilelessly. They both froze, waiting, but the noise did not return.

After a long beat, Ellen continued scrambling to get dressed, her fingers barely cooperating. 

“It’s probably rats,” Scott said, too loudly. “Maybe a raccoon.” He pulled his t-shirt over his head at a leisurely pace that made her want to scream. The mellow disposition she usually found so attractive now felt like a liability. 

He teased, “Careful you don’t get bit. You know what they say about the animals around here.”

Ellen shuddered, knowing all too well. She zipped her hoodie up to her chin, plunging her fists in the pockets.

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Maybe it’s the Mad Doctor himself.”

She shushed him and started to reach for her flashlight.

“Sorry, baby.” He looped his arms around her waist and kissed her sweetly on the forehead and then the lips. For just a moment, she let herself relax into his touch and breathe in his soothing scent, trying to absorb his placidity.

“It’s just an urban legend,” he said.

“I know that,” she snapped, extracting herself from his embrace. She’d lobbed his same words at her roommate on the way out of the door that night. So why couldn’t she shake the feeling there was another presence in the room? “I just want to get out of here.”

Scott’s eyebrows raised; he was used to her leading them to the creepiest areas in their little excursions. “Okay, let’s go.”

He looped his camera around his neck and grabbed his flashlight from the autopsy table as she bounced on her heels, unable to contain her nerves. As they pushed the swinging doors open, she heard it again. _Thump._

“Oh, shit,” Scott swore. For the first time, she could read fear in his expression. 

“You heard that, right?” she asked, her voice wavering.

“Yeah.” His eyes were wide. “And I forgot my camera bag.” 

“Just leave it,” Ellen pleaded. “Let’s _go_.” 

“Ellen, you know I can’t,” he said quietly. “There’s a thousand dollars worth of equipment in there.” 

There was no point to her protest, and Scott was already crossing the room to retrieve it. 

Ellen could only register the details of what came next in fragments. Her mind cut in and out, jittering like a television with shoddy reception. Scott bent down to pick up the bag where he’d set it on the floor next to the cold storage freezers. The door swung open, hitting him square at the top of his head with a sickening crunch. He careened backwards, the back of his skull knocking against the tiles with an impact that sounded even harder than the first. Blood pooled around the back of his head. Too much blood. The puddle kept expanding. That meant he was still alive, right? The dead didn’t bleed, she knew that much.

Ellen rushed to his side, ignoring her instinct to flee. When she put her fingers to his neck to feel for a pulse, his head lolled to the side. His eyes were blank, staring. His mouth hung open. 

She forced back a sob. Could he be only unconscious? She couldn’t feel a pulse on his neck. Was she touching the wrong spot? She couldn’t feel his breath when she put her hand over his face. She picked up his wrist. He was limp, too limp. She needed to do CPR. She’d never done CPR. Why had she never learned? How could she have been so stupid, so careless? An animal shriek came from her throat, an unfamiliar, jarring sound from a place deep inside her she’d never reached before. 

“Wake up, baby,” she whimpered, gently shaking his slack arm, afraid to move his head. The back of his skull was flat, shattered. Wrong-looking. All wrong.

She attempted chest compressions. Someone else was here, her brain screamed at her. Someone was coming for her. But what if she could save him? She didn’t know what she was doing, but she had to try. She attempted to breathe life back into his lungs and pulled back, scanning him desperately for any change.

For a moment, she thought she saw him moving, his chest starting to rise and fall, a fluttering of his eyelids. She could envision everything from there: lifting him into her arms, both of them sobbing with relief, sitting by his side at the hospital as he sat up with a head wrapped in gauze, breathlessly talking about their close call.

But it was her mind playing tricks on her. When she forced herself to focus, she could see he was utterly still.

He was never going to wake up again.

The thought pierced her mind with sudden, exacting clarity. The man she loved was gone forever. He was gone. He’d been gone. And now, the tray from the freezer was moving, the edge now visible on the other side of the cubby door. Two feet landed on the ground, the figure almost invisible in the shadows. Time seemed to flatten, expand, everything in slow-motion like those dreams where it felt like she was moving in sand. 

The figure straightened. For a surreal moment, she wondered if she was witnessing a dead body come back to life, like on that campy new vampire show she watched with Scott. Deliriously, she thought: Wood stake through the heart and the bad guy turns to dust.

She picked up the flashlight, her hands slippery with Scott’s blood, and directed it at her adversary, anticipating something demonic. First she saw a sliver of pale, bald head like a crescent moon in the shadows. For the briefest second, his eyes flashed, milky and luminescent like an animal at night. But his face, when he stepped toward her, out of the dark, was ordinary. The eyes that seemed so huge as they reflected at her were small and pale, set in what might have once been a round, babyish face that was now malnourished and jowly. His skin was translucent, displaying a network of purple veins around his temples. A thick scar bisected his face. He wore grimy scrubs that may have once been light blue. He hissed at her, recoiling from the light. It was _him_ , the go-to campfire tale of Pasteur County.

She kept the light directed at the former doctor as she got up, only to slip in the pool of slick around Scott’s head, landing hard on her tailbone. Excruciating pain shot through her spine, but it clarified her mind. She’d wasted too much time in her shock. She scrambled back to her feet.

The man knelt beside Scott, putting two fingers to his neck confidently; he knew exactly where to check. He looked at his watch.

“Time of death 8:42 PM,” he said. His voice was nasal, scratchy with disuse. He looked up at Ellen, breaking into a smile. His yellowed teeth were slightly pointed.

Just as he leapt up, she broke into a run and pushed through the swinging doors in a full sprint. Ellen had never been a runner, and she was amazed by her body, adrenaline making her strides longer and faster than ever before. She felt like she was flying, and she couldn’t even feel her lungs burning.

Still, she could hear him gaining on her. Closer, closer, until she was thrown off balance with a sickening lurch. He’d grabbed the hood of her sweater, she realized as he slammed her into the wall. She managed to tuck her head away so her shoulder took the brunt of the impact. 

As she prepared to turn and attack—a knee to the crotch, an elbow to the stomach, her fingernails in his eye sockets—a strong arm circled her throat. She flailed, clawing at his arms and kicking as hard as she could at his shins from the awkward angle. 

He was unfazed. How was it possible he was so strong? The man was emancipated and much older than her, and she was young and fit. It seemed she’d encountered a demon after all. 

She fought until felt herself losing strength, slowly, like air being let out of a tire. Still, she feebly dug her fingernails into his flesh. The hallway narrowed, elongated, shadows invading the edges of her vision. Black spots started to crowd her sight, more and more until she could only see darkness, and she knew she was going to die.  
  


* * *

  
Ellen woke in a dim room. Two lamps hung from chains in the center of the ceiling, the ancient bulbs giving off a flickering orange glow. They looked like they would stop working at any second, plunging her in total darkness. The walls were industrial white. A hospital.

As she remembered, grief was a boot on her chest, pressing slowly and firmly. Scott was gone. Forever. She walked into this godforsaken hospital with the love of her life, and now he was lying dead on the floor of an abandoned morgue.

His staring eyes. His limp hands. All that blood. 

She wanted to scream, to wail, to pull out her hair. Instead, she forced herself to take a deep breath, sit up and take in her surroundings.

She was on a musty bed with a barred bed frame, the sheets sporting mysterious yellow and brown stains. The door had a small window, thick glass crossed with iron. A small slot at the bottom for passing meals. In front of it, a plate of slop—some sort of bean concoction with colorless scraps of meat. A portable toilet at the corner of the room, the plastic cracked and yellowed. A rusty, steel bucket next to it with a lid.

Her head throbbed, and the back of her neck pricked with pain. She reached to the spot and felt a bandaid, noting the old fashioned woven fibers instead of plastic of which she was accustomed. She lifted one side to feel a slight raised lump. Probably an injection.

In a flood, she remembered the stories. The Mad Doctor, infecting his patients with rabies, dissecting their brains and collecting the remaining portions in jars. Decades later, still stalking the woods at night. She needed to get out of here in time to get inoculated. If he’d injected her with the virus, it might only take days to reach her brain with how close it was to her brainstem. Maybe even hours. Once it passed to her brain, she was as good as dead.

Dead like Scott.

She wished she believed they would be reunited after she died, but she didn’t. There was nothing but blackness and absence waiting on the other side. 

“You won’t start to feel the effects for at least three days,” came that nasal voice from outside her room.

She looked up to see his face through the window in the door.

“What did you do to me?” she asked tremulously.

He didn't answer. He regarded her impassively and licked his lips in a quick, reptilian motion. 

“What the fuck did you do to me?” she screamed.

“After three to five days, you might start to feel disoriented, aggressive,” he stated calmly, his voice getting smoother as he spoke. “You will find swallowing difficult and avoid water. Your mouth will produce excessive saliva. You will be broken down to your most primal instincts, and the decline will be rapid from there. You may experience fleeting moments of lucidity. Eventually, you will slip into a coma.”

Coma, then death.

“I’m going to kill you, motherfucker.” Her throat grew raw as she screamed at him, flinging herself against the door, pounding at it with her fists, until her skin started to split and her knuckles began to bruise.

“I would advise you not to hurt yourself. I cannot administer medical assistance.”

“I don’t want your help,” she spat, slamming the side of her fist against the unyielding glass. “I want you to let me out, you piece of shit.”

She froze, considering her strategy. Could she appeal to his better nature? She took a deep breath before attempting a sweet apology.

“Please,” she said in a soft voice. “Please let me out. I won’t tell anyone, I promise.”

“I’ll be back tomorrow morning with another meal,” he said placidly. “If the lights go out, I have left you candles in the drawer. The electricity comes and goes at the whim of the hospital. Do not try to do anything. There is nothing you can do.”

He vanished.

Ellen screamed until her voice gave out. Just as the lights flickered and went out with a faint _whoosh_ , she noticed the smears of dried blood on the door. She wasn’t the first to pound at that door. Unless she found a way out of here, she wouldn’t be the last.

She put her shredded fist to her mouth and sobbed.


	2. Chapter 2

Somewhere over West Virginia

Nov. 6, 1997

At the sound of the seatbelt chime, Scully and Mulder got to work. She hauled her briefcase from under the seat in front of her, and they both lowered their meal trays. She pulled out a thick case file, all the details faxed this morning from the Pasteur County sheriff’s office. Her stomach knotted at the neatly typed “Silverwood General Hospital” on the front of the folder, and she flipped past it quickly.

“Whadda we got?” Mulder asked. He knew the rough details of the case already, but she’d had more of an opportunity to peruse the initial crime scene report on the drive to the airport that morning. Sometimes she got the impression he simply liked to hear her talk.

“Eight bodies discovered in shallow graves outside the graveyard behind...the hospital,” Scully began, afraid her voice would reveal too much if she said its name. She spoke low to avoid getting overheard, but the passengers surrounding them were asleep or watching _Clueless_. “All in various levels of decomposition, most old enough to be completely skeletonized. Each with their skulls sawed open and their brains removed. The skull was replaced and stapled shut.” 

Mulder winced.

She continued, “Earlier this week, a local was on a hike in the woods behind the hospital. Her dog broke free from the leash. She thought he was chasing a squirrel until she found him chewing on a human hand. Apparently, the heavy rains washed out a burial site.”

“Any IDs so far?”

“Scott Aguirre and Ellen Larson. They were the most recent victims. Unmarried couple vanished from their campsite earlier this year. Their tent was found only a short walk from the hospital, and it appeared they’d intended to return.” She flipped through the report. “They’re working on identifying the other bodies through dental records right now.”

She handed Mulder the initial report. His thumb brushed over hers as she took it, but the moment passed so briefly she couldn’t tell if the touch was intentional or not. Regardless, it sparked a flutter in her, a sensation she was starting to find impossible to ignore. The fleeting distraction was as welcome as it was nerve-wracking. She was going to have to do something about this _thing_ between them, a truth that had been humming in her mind at a low frequency ever since she learned she was in full remission.

There would be plenty of time to figure out what to do about the Mulder Problem—as she’d started referring to it to herself—when the case was over. Now they had eight murders to solve. Possibly more, as they were still excavating the crime scene. As she pulled her reading glasses out of the breast pocket of her suit, she noticed Mulder staring at her.

“What?” she asked, suddenly self-conscious. 

He shrugged. “Nothing.”

She tipped her head at him, not taking his deflection for an answer.

“It’s just good to have you back, that’s all.” His smile was brief and uncharacteristically shy. They held the moment for a beat too long, until an inscrutable darkness passed over his face. The recycled air didn’t seem to have enough oxygen. 

“It’s good to be back,” she replied honestly. She might be here by the grace of a mysterious microchip implanted on the back of her neck about which she didn’t dare speculate, but at least she was alive. The return to their routine _was_ heartening, despite everything else about this case. 

“But are you sure it’s not too soon?” he finished.

Scully sighed. If he kept asking her that question, she was either going to snap at him again, as she had twice that morning, or start second-guessing herself. “We’ve been over this, Mulder. I got a clean bill of health from my doctor. I’ve never felt better. If you keep this up, I’m going to start thinking you don’t actually want me back on the field.”

“Of course I do. But this is a big case, and if you need more time...” His throat moved as he swallowed.

“I don’t,” she said curtly, closing the subject. “But the irony is not lost on me that my first case sends me right back to the hospital.” _Not just any hospital._

She was trying to lighten the mood, but it hadn’t worked. “It’s not going to send you back to the hospital,” he said with grim sincerity. 

Christ, he better not start handling her with kid gloves. She opened her mouth to point out how many cases end up with one of them in the hospital for one reason or another but thought better of it. 

Instead, she flipped through the photographs of the crime scene and the bodies. Eight shallow holes extending from the edge of the ancient graveyard behind the hospital. Six bodies fully skeletonized, two in advanced decay. 

Mulder set down the report and leaned in. Either he didn’t notice or didn’t care that his thigh pressed against hers, and she felt herself unconsciously bending toward him in response. His chin practically rested on her shoulder, and he still smelled like his morning shower: cheap shampoo and expensive aftershave, a distracting cocktail of masculine scents.

“What can you tell from the bones?”

She squinted at the photos, flipping through the pages to compare. After thoughtful consideration, she said, “They appear to belong to people of both sexes, all fully grown adults. I won’t be able to estimate their approximate age at death until I get a closer look at the bones.” 

“Can you tell how long they’ve been in the ground?” Mulder had a glint in his eye that made her wary.

Scully pulled out a photograph of the oldest looking body and held it up against the most recent. “It’s not an exact science, and it’s difficult to determine even with a full examination.” 

“Humor me, Scully.”

“Judging by the visible wear and the missing appendages, I would say the oldest skeleton was buried at least ten years ago, but it could be older,” she said. She felt a lurch of nausea. How many times had she walked over those grounds, oblivious to the fact that she was stepping on graves?

“How much older?”

Scully shrugged. “Could be twenty or fifty. If we’re lucky, some of the bodies will have dental work that could place them in a specific period of time, but it’s unlikely without an identification we’ll be able to narrow it down past a 10-year range.”

“So you think this victim could have been killed in the 1950s?” 

“Possibly,” she replied carefully. 

Mulder paused, clearly waiting for her to ask him about his theory, and when she didn’t take the bait, he asked, “So what do you make of it?”

“Medical fetishist,” she murmured, not taking her eyes off the bones. “The brain is his trophy.”

“You think it could be a doctor?”

“I wouldn’t rule it out,” she said. “The methodology matches how a brain is removed during an autopsy.” 

“Rogue pathologist, maybe?” He nudged her teasingly with his shoulder.

“The cuts appear confident,” she agreed, brushing past his good-natured dig. “The incision is made on the back of the head and the scalp lifted up to provide access to the skull.” Scully pointed to the stapled lines on the back of Victim #10—Ellen Larson’s—head. She continued, “Using a saw, the top of the skull is removed, and the brain is lifted out.” She indicated a photo of Victim #6, fully skeletonized with a piece of skull like a shallow ivory bowl sitting next to the rest of his bones. “While I don’t think he was concerned about concealing the incisions, it’s an effective method.” 

“So,” he mused. “It’s someone who either knows what they were doing or learned this technique and had a lot of opportunity to master it.” 

“The question still remains, why the brains?” 

“Why indeed,” he insinuated. 

She opened her mouth to respond, but a female voice cut into the conversation. “Sir?”

Instinctively, Scully closed the case file, hoping she was fast enough the photos weren’t seen. The flight attendant standing by their row didn’t give any indication she had seen anything gruesome. Like her face, her makeup was expertly neutral, and her dark, sleek hair was pulled into an elegant French twist that accentuated her long neck. She was leggy and slim, and the thought _that’s his type_ came unbidden to Scully’s mind. She pushed it away, vaguely annoyed.

“I’m going to have to ask you to keep your foot out of the aisle,” the woman said. 

Her stern expression melted as soon as Mulder switched on his highest wattage grin. He made a show of pulling his leg in, pressing Scully against the sharp edge of her armrest. 

“I swear they make these seats smaller every year,” he said. She wondered, not for the first time, if his flirtatious charm was intentional, or just the unconscious way he’d learned to get the results he wanted. The ease with which he navigated the world would be irritating if it weren’t so often beneficial to them.

“They’re certainly not made for men of your...stature,” the flight attendant agreed, her eyes drifting down for a moment, a corner of her mauve lips quirking up.

“Tell me about it,” he groaned good-naturedly.

She paused before snapping back into professionalism. “We’ll be coming through with the drink cart in a minute.”

As the woman continued down the aisle, Scully’s chest tightened, and she was grateful she hadn’t been expected to speak. However unwarranted, she knew she wouldn't have been able to keep the bitchiness out of her tone. She wasn’t proud of her jealousy; she knew she had no claim over her partner. 

Mulder turned back to her, picking up the conversation where they’d left off. “Does the name Dr. Edgar Thornton ring any bells?”

She sighed, starting to suspect his theory. “He was a physician in the ‘40s and ‘50s who studied infectious diseases. The, uh, hospital where he worked suffered a massive rabies outbreak, believed at the time to be caused by an infestation of bats, whose bites can be so subtle that many people do not know they’ve been attacked. There were so many cases they had to isolate an area of the hospital as a rabies ward. Thornton headed this ward and studied the disease in the process. It later turned out he’d been intentionally infecting the patients. He disappeared after the illegal experiments were discovered, and it’s thought he was beginning to show symptoms of the disease himself.”

He raised his eyebrows, impressed. “You’ve done your homework.” 

“He’s brought up often in medical school,” she said. It wasn’t a lie, exactly, but it felt like one. She looked away from Mulder, afraid he’d read it in her eyes. 

“There are many theories about what happened to him,” he said provocatively.

“Sure,” she agreed. “The official explanation is that he committed suicide, having had his secret discovered and knowing that the rabies virus meant certain death once it expressed symptoms. There’s also the possibility that he simply fled into the woods where he would have inevitably slipped into a coma and died. The woods are dense enough with many predators and scavengers, and disappearances without the discovery of a body are not uncommon.” 

Mulder opened his mouth, but she continued, anticipating his response. “Yes, it’s a local legend that he still stalks the woods to this day. There have been a handful of unsubstantiated eyewitness accounts of a man in filthy scrubs stealing food, though there is nothing to directly indicate it’s Thornton, even if those accounts were to be believed. It’s a campfire tale, the kind that’s naturally born from a gruesome event in history.” 

“And here I thought small town campfire tales were my area. I’m impressed.” 

She ignored that. “Even if he were still alive, he would be an old man. There’s no way he would have the muscular strength to take down a young, able-bodied couple. But that’s beside the point. Rabies has a 100% fatality rate once it passes the blood-brain barrier.” 

“But there have been instances of people surviving the virus if they received post-exposure vaccinations,” Mulder countered. 

“Certainly,” Scully agreed. “The first documented case was a young boy in the early ‘70s who received the more modern and effective duck-embryo vaccine, which wasn’t developed until 1957. Besides, it’s said Thornton refused the vaccine, convinced he’d discovered a superior treatment.” 

“Maybe he did,” he suggested. 

She blinked at him, waiting for more of an explanation. It didn’t come. 

“We’ve seen stranger things, haven’t we Scully?” 

“What are you saying?" she asked. "Thornton is living in the walls of an abandoned hospital and continuing his experiments on those unlucky enough to step foot inside?” 

Mulder lifted his hands innocently. “I’m saying there are a lot of unanswered questions about what happened after the experiments were shut down. And there was—”

Scully braced herself for what she knew he was about to say next, her hands tightening to fists under her meal tray. Her mind flashed to an image indelibly imprinted on her psyche: a beautiful woman slumped against the wall, her pale pink scrubs blackened with blood, her mouth hanging open in eternal surprise. 

“Drinks?” The flight attendant cut in, materializing over Mulder’s shoulder in front of the drink caddy.

“Two coffees, please,” Mulder told her. “One black. One cream, no sugar.”

Scully watched as the woman poured the coffee and handed them over, meticulously selecting a napkin from the bottom of the stack for Mulder. A sharpie scrawl was visible through the thin paper.

“The customer service on this airline is truly exceptional,” Scully muttered as the attendants moved on to the next row, eyeing Mulder over her cup as she took a sip.

“Hmm?” Mulder sounded genuinely oblivious.

“It seems she just brought you more than coffee.”

Mulder held up his cup and frowned at it. Scully flipped over the napkin to reveal a phone number. She cocked her head at him.

“You think she likes me?” His jaw dropped, mock-incredulous.

He set the cup down on the napkin, and she watched a drop of dark liquid slide down and spread into a feathery brown stain, blending with the ink.

Mulder continued in a low voice, “So anyway, in 1989, a medical examiner was found in the morgue with her carotid artery slashed by her own scalpel.”

Scully’s extremities started to tingle, and she knew it wasn’t just the elevation. She finished for him, “And the case remains unsolved to this day.”

“You really have done your homework.”

“More than that,” she admitted with a long exhale. There was no point in keeping it from him any longer. “I worked at Silverwood General for nine months as a medical intern.”

“You _what_?”

“I did a medical internship there for nine months,” she repeated. “After I finished med school at Stanford and before I continued my education in forensic pathology at UMD.” She kept her voice as bland and matter-of-fact as she could manage, though she could barely hear herself over the white-noise hum of the plane and the blood pounding in her head. She was only telling him a fraction of the full story, but if she told him everything, she couldn’t trust herself to maintain her composure, and Mulder would put them on the first flight back to DC as soon as they landed. 

“That wasn’t on your resume.” He sounded accusatory, like he was hurt she’d intentionally withheld this detail of her past even though it constituted little more than a blip in her career.

“An unfinished medical internship isn’t exactly the crowning achievement of my career,” she explained.

“Well, did you notice anything unusual in your time there?”

“It was a hospital,” she said. “Of course I did.”

“You know what I mean.”

“It was a shitty place to work,” she evaded. “Understaffed, constant equipment failures.” _Constant unexplained deaths._ “I didn’t see a rabid doctor from the 1950s stalking the halls, if that’s what you’re getting at. You haven’t explained how you think it would be possible he survived that long with the strength to kill healthy adults and move their bodies.”

“I don’t know, Scully. Maybe instead of killing him, the disease transformed him, prolonging his life and transforming him into something _other_.”

“Mulder, no.” She groaned and tipped her head back.

“Rabies is at the root of most modern folklore related to human monstrosity,” he intoned. “The concept of the human becoming something bestial. Much of vampire and werewolf lore was born of our fears of the rabid human.” 

“You’re saying werewolves steal brains now? I thought that was zombies,” she replied, deadpan.

“You jest, Scully, but the American conception of zombies is intrinsically tied to rabies.”

“It’s also the plot of Cujo, but I fail to see how that’s relevant here.” 

He lifted his hands in surrender. “All I’m saying is that it seems highly coincidental we’re finding bodies with missing brains outside a hospital where forty-some years ago, illegal experiments were taking place involving the removal and study of rabies-infected brains. Bet you twenty bucks you’ll find signs of rabies infection in the autopsy.”

“Make it fifty,” she countered.

“Ooh, big spender. What makes you so sure?”

She explained, “There is no clear-cut way to determine a rabies infection at this stage. After the virus passes the blood-brain barrier, the viral load becomes undetectable. While you can look for rabies antibodies post-mortem, those tests are most reliable if samples are taken just a few hours after death.” 

“What about other signs?” he asked. “Inflammation? Muscular deterioration?”

“Well, we could look for signs of encephalitis in the brain if we had a brain to examine,” she said dryly. “That still wouldn’t tell us definitively if the virus was the cause. Rabies operates by binding to the nervous system and controlling its responses, but it does not visibly deteriorate the brain. It’s one of the reasons it remains such a medical mystery to this day, and many scientists believe understanding the virus will help us better treat diseases of the central nervous system such as Parkinson’s, cerebral palsy and Alzheimer’s. I imagine that’s what initially compelled Thornton to study the disease.” 

“Maybe he never stopped studying,” he said quietly, and they fell silent. 

After a time, the flight attendant returned with a trash bag. Mulder crumpled both napkins inside their stack coffee cups, and Scully saw the woman’s lips purse at the rejection. A flicker of triumph pierced through Scully’s foreboding.


	3. Chapter 3

Azalea, CA

May 30, 1988

Coarse roof tiles clung to Dana’s clothes like she was a fly caught on a trap. The guts of the Milky Way spilled across the sky, the first time she’d ever seen galaxies with her naked eye. On the military bases of her childhood and the big cities of her early adulthood, the few stars and planets that made it past the obscuring streetlights felt special. Now she had to remind herself she wasn’t in a planetarium.

Melissa handed her the mug of cocoa—only lightly spiked, at Dana’s insistence, as alcohol and rooftops were a bad combination. The sugar and alcoholic bite jolted her into alertness, and its warmth inoculated her against the chilly wind.

She attempted to hand the thermos to Amy, but a meteor slashed across the sky, and Amy got to her feet to cheer. Like the beginning of a firework show, the meteor shower started in a trickle. They’d seen a few bursts of light and a couple of deceptive planes, but now they could tell it was truly about to begin.

“Make a wish,” Melissa said, nudging her sister.

“I’ll be making wishes all night, then.” Dana took another swig of cocoa.

“Nothing wrong with having a lot of wishes.” Melissa lifted herself up on her elbows and turned to her girlfriend who was standing perilously close to the edge with her face tilted to the sky. “Sweetie, you’re making me nervous.”

Amy dutifully slipped under the blanket and curled around Melissa, tucking her head into the crook of Melissa’s shoulder. They both sighed contentedly, lazy smiles at the corners of their lips. Now acutely aware of her aloneness, Dana wrapped her arms around herself.

A falling star split the sky with an ephemeral flurry of sparks, and everyone “oohed.” Dana would have to make a wish for that one. A myriad of possibilities came to mind, everything she should want for her career and her future, but only one stuck out with a sharp clarity: the desire to have with someone what Melissa had with Amy. Not _now_ , of course; she’d have no time for at least four years. But some day, when her stars finally aligned.

Amy was not what Dana had expected when she’d learned that her sister had met someone special in a hippie/hick small town in Northern California. That Melissa’s new love was a woman was not a surprise—she’d come out privately when they were both in high school, which had explained the string of nice but quickly discarded boyfriends. Dana had assumed she’d be meeting someone more patchouli-scented with a closet full of maxi skirts. Instead, Amy’s all-black wardrobe was haphazardly sliced with scissors, her hair teased up like Siouxsie Sioux and her eyes thickly lined with kohl. From her firm handshake to the wry humor in her eyes, Dana had liked Amy instantly. 

She was full of energy, always fixing things around their house, always taking on new projects. A perfect balance to Melissa’s serene placidity. When Amy started her medical examiner residency at the county hospital a few years ago, she cropped her hair into a sleek a-line bob and traded in her black clothing for pale pink scrubs as an inside joke to herself. The worn Doc Martens she always wore were the only indication of her former aesthetic. 

Amy kissed Melissa sweetly on the lips, not caring about their audience. Dana focused her attention on the sky and its sweeping white brush strokes and paint splatters of stars. The absence of a moon made everything shine even brighter. She felt dizzy under the display, like the slightly slanted roof was pitching her down, and she dug the soles of her shoes into the gritty tiles.

A few more meteors zipped across the sky, and Dana chided, “You’re gonna miss the show if you keep necking.”

They pulled apart. Amy said, “Your sister is so beautiful it’s hard to look away from her.”

Dana replied, “She’s not going anywhere, but a meteor shower like this only happens—”

“Once every ten years,” Melissa interrupted. “We know.”

She found Dana’s hand and wrapped her cool slender fingers around it. “If you come live with us, you’re gonna have to get used to playing third wheel, you know.”

Dana had thought a lot about that, and in truth, she didn’t mind. While she didn’t particularly enjoy seeing their displays of affection, she liked their company. She liked the fact that Melissa was in love in a way Dana had never seen before, for the first time with someone she intended to keep. 

And Dana loved the house. The two-story Victorian had drafty windows that required sticks to prop them up (Amy’s next project when she finished repairing the rotting porch). The heating system was a wood furnace in the living room that only warmed the first floor, but it was cozy, and it felt like home. Even if it always smelled like pot smoke and incense, and Melissa's idea of home decorating was lining the walls with mandala tapestries she purchased from a burned out Deadhead at the edge of town.

“We’re barely going to see her if she stays with us,” Amy said. “First year resident? She’ll be sleeping at the hospital more nights than not.” She nuzzled into Melissa’s neck. “We’ll have plenty of alone time.”

Melissa shushed her with a giggle. “I’ll be on my best behavior,” she said to Dana. “But I can’t speak for this one.”

Amy asked Dana, “Remind me what the choices are?”

“I have offers from Stanford, UMD and Silverwood.”

Amy whistled.

“Dad’s gonna shit a brick if you turn down Stanford,” Melissa said.

Dana’s mouth went dry thinking about how proud her father had been when she’d landed a full-ride to medical school at Stanford and graduated with top marks. She dreaded his disappointment when she—to his mind—threw it all away to live with her sinful sister and do her residency at a newly opened hospital in the middle of nowhere. 

“It’s not about what Dad wants,” she asserted. “I hated Stanford. Bunch of snooty rich kids. If your family isn’t donating to the university, you’re nobody. If you have to think about bills, you’re even less.”

“I hear that,” Amy said. She’d had a full ride to Columbia and shared a similar disdain for the ivory tower.

The sky lit up with a series of streaks across the sky, and they all whooped. As the sky quieted, so did they. 

“I worry about Silverwood for you,” Melissa said softly after a time.

“We know you do,” Dana groaned. “I think you just don’t want to live with your little sister again.”

“You know it’s not that.” Melissa sounded serious. “It’s that place. I have a feeling about it. And I don’t like it for either of you.”

“I’d like to see a hospital that actually has good vibes,” Amy retorted. “Kinda goes against their nature.”

“It’s more than that, and you both know it.” Melissa sounded frustrated. 

They all fell silent, none of them wanting to engage in an argument and spoil the magic of the evening. The breeze set the wind chimes rattling against each other in a sweet melody. A bat fluttered across the Milky Way, and some other nocturnal mammal scurried through their garden.

“I want to do a reading for you,” Melissa declared. “For old time’s sake.”

It had been years since Melissa had done a tarot reading for Dana, and they had always been about trivial high school things—boy trouble or what science elective to take. Still, they _had_ helped her make sense of situations. When she was younger, a reading held the same sense of magic as church. Her sister had a way of casting a spell over a candlelit room, a way of making her believe. Dana was not surprised when she learned Melissa was using her talents professionally at the local occult shop.

“Okay,” Dana agreed, surprised at how grateful she was for the suggestion.

“Let the cards decide,” Amy called into the night. 

The sky erupted in slivers of light. 


	4. Chapter 4

Azalea, CA

Nov. 6, 1997

Rain was a constant companion as they drove from the San Francisco airport up the 101 at a pace that belied Scully’s caution at the slippery freeway and her reluctance to reach their location. They passed expanses of green fields that turned to hills until the trees grew and the towns shrank. A smaller highway led them on a circuitous path over an immense hill, depositing them into a valley and the town of Azalea. Rain kept everyone indoors, and it gave the impression of being a ghost town.

Very little had changed; the town still revolved around its Main Street, all the relevant storefronts aligned on its sides like the set of a Western. The movie theater, the pizza parlor, even the modest town square could have been pulled from her memory. The only difference she noticed was the occult store on the corner was now a coffee shop, a sidewalk sign advertising peppermint mocha lattes instead of tarot card readings. As always, the hospital loomed large over the town, always at the edge of vision when facing north. 

Her muscles remembered to slow down before the speed sign became visible. _The cops here have nothing better to do and quotas to meet_ , Melissa always warned her. Well they had somewhere to be today, Scully thought grimly. 

At the entrance to the road indicated only by the sign reading Silverwood General Hospital, she hit the pothole— _that_ fucking pothole. The jolt and subsequent cringe-inducing scrape threw her back into her first day. For a moment, the balmy California breeze was teasing strays from her French Braid as she sang “Like a Prayer” off-key and full-volume. The air tasted of wildfire. 

Her last day had resembled today with steel-dark clouds blotting out the sunlight. The downpour turned the roads treacherous, and the only sound was the squeaky windshield wipers and the crunch of gravel. 

As she took a sharp turn, they were plunged under a dense canopy of redwoods and dusk turned to nightfall. 

“How the hell did you people drive ambulances up here?” Mulder asked as Scully hydroplaned over yet another abrupt swerve. He clutched the “oh shit handle” as Melissa had liked to call it. 

“Your guess is as good as mine.” It was a question she’d asked herself many times, one of many things that never quite added up about the hospital.

As the forest broke, their view was commandeered by the imposing building at the apex of the hill, a u-shaped structure that wrapped around the parking lot like a curved hand. At one point, Scully had been impressed by the vintage architecture they’d taken care to preserve during the remodel. Now she found its rigid symmetry imposing, the rows of tiny windows prison-like.

She found a parking spot in the corner next to a patrol car and a utility van she assumed belonged to the excavation team. Crime scene tape wrapped around the perimeter of the building, extending behind the hospital and along the downslope of the hill. She made out the edges of white canopies and red flags stuck into the waterlogged earth. 

They buttoned their trench coats and tightened their belts. Mulder pulled two umbrellas from the back seat and handed one to Scully. They held them partially open, bracing themselves as they opened their doors to the onslaught of rain. The moment she stepped outside, her heels sunk into the mud, and her feet were drenched. She grimaced, already longing for the comfort of Azalea’s only motel, despite its unsavory reputation and log cabin kitsch. 

Scully studiously kept her eyes away from the entrance to the hospital and fixed on the tents. To her side, Mulder held his umbrella against the wind like a spear, his black coat flapping around his legs.

White tents came into view as they rounded the corner. Two men in tan police uniforms were overseeing a small excavation team currently working on an eleventh depression in the ground. The other ten were flagged and pooling with water. She winced; the rains would have certainly destroyed any forensic evidence that hadn’t already decomposed away. 

As she passed the bench overlooking the graveyard, she noticed the wood was now splintered and rotting, enveloped in spongey moss. The coffee tin next to it overflowed with rainwater instead of cigarette butts, a few flowing on the surface like dead koi. The graveyard had not changed, still filled with haphazardly-placed, cracked tombstones textured with lichen. She recognized the bouquet of fake flowers attached to one, the sun-bleached fabric petals fraying around the edges. 

Practically shouting over the cacophony of rain on the tents, the taller cop introduced himself as Sheriff Grady Fisher. His shake was clammy and painfully firm, though she couldn’t fault him for the former considering the weather. He had the individual features of all-American handsomeness but for some reason, they didn’t add up to attractive. He became decidedly unattractive when his eyes dropped to linger on her body. 

She resisted the urge to pull her trench tighter around her and glanced at Mulder. He was preoccupied staring at the wet graves, and the sheriff had to clear his throat to get his attention.

The other man turned out to be his deputy, Gabriel Ward. The narrow lines of his face accentuated dark, deep set eyes in a lightly lined face, and he could have been 45 just as easily as 25. From his crew cut and rigid posture, Scully immediately pegged him as former military. Lower ranking, from the way he stood stiffly to the sheriff’s side; he looked more comfortable with deferring than leading.

"We don't have too many to spare, but I pulled most of my men for the task force," Sheriff Fisher told them, pausing as though expecting a thank you. He continued, "Got them starting on backgrounds for the IDed vics." 

“You found more bodies?” Mulder asked.

“Two this morning. We’re going to have to dig out this whole goddamn graveyard to make sure we didn't miss anything. Ground penetrating radar indicated something in this area but hell, it could just be a rock. I guess we're about to find out.”

One of the excavators looked up at them with a carefully guarded expression before depositing another trowel-full of mud to the side of the potential grave.

Scully said, “It's easier to find bodies using GPR if they were buried in a coffin or shroud.”

“You're telling me,” he grumbled. “We would have never found this in the first place except it’s been raining like a motherfucker.”

He caught himself and looked at Scully, probably to see if she flinched at his language. She didn’t. His little test was annoying, but it was better than the condescending gendered apologies to which she was accustomed. 

“We won’t get much in the way of evidence.” Scully twisted her mouth as she regarded the scene.

Ward nodded. “Rain’s not supposed to let up for at least a week.”

Fisher continued, “We have the bodies up at Stanton Memorial—that’s the county hospital thirty minutes south. Our coroner’s tied up all day at his funeral home, but he can do the autopsies tomorrow.”

“I’ll be performing the autopsies,” Scully corrected. “But he’s welcome to assist.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Didn’t know it was customary for field agents to do autopsies.” 

“It’s not, but I'm a forensic pathologist,” she stated flatly.

“Well ain’t that something.” Fisher’s smile didn’t meet his eyes.

Scully sweetly returned his smile then redirected the conversation. “The hiker that found Scott Aguirre’s grave...where were they coming from?”

Ward indicated the point where the woods thickened.

“Is there a path over there?” Mulder asked as he perused the graves.

“No,” Ward confirmed. “Closest trail is over at the campsites. We get some hikers up here, but most everything out there is private property.”

“Good way to get yourself shot,” Fisher declared.

“Why is that?” Scully stared into the trees, mentally tracing the hiker’s path.

“Lotta people hiding their marijuana farms in the woods,” the sheriff sniffed. “Redwoods make good cover ‘cause you can’t see the crops from a helicopter. Folks like to set traps, keep dogs trained to sic people. If that doesn’t work, they got shotguns.”

“I’m guessing you haven’t been able to find any drag marks? Tire tracks?” With chagrin, Scully eyed the rivulets of water streaming down the muddy slope.

“No ma’am,” said the deputy. “Anything would’ve been washed away by the rain.”

Mulder looked up to the hospital. “Where is the closest entrance to the building?”

“There’s the ambulance bay that we passed on the way, and a door on the other side leading from the hall by the morgue,” she answered. It was the door she’d most commonly used to enter the hospital, along with most of the staff. They all tended to avoid the front entrance with the waiting room and all the needy patients whose eyes would follow them.

The two officers looked surprised at her knowledge of the hospital but didn’t comment on it.

“How thoroughly did you search the building?” Mulder asked.

“Top to bottom, sir,” Ward said with a hint of pride. “You can check it out yourselves, but if there was anything to find, we found it.”

“Another set of eyes never hurt anything, right guys?” Mulder said cheerily.

Fisher shrugged and tossed Mulder a set of keys. They were on a trajectory into a grave, but Mulder caught them deftly. 

“Knock yourselves out,” the sheriff said. “Ward and I are gonna wait until we see if we find anything here, then we’ll see what our task force came up with." 

They exchanged numbers and said their goodbyes. As they set off toward the hospital, Scully’s shoes squelched in the mud, forcing her to carefully lift her leg up with each step. A preoccupied Mulder bounded ahead of her and waited at the entrance. 

She fastidiously wiped her heels on a thick patch of weeds and narrowed her eyes at her eager partner. “Please tell me you don’t intend to start searching in the walls right now.” 

“Not today,” he replied, looking amused. “I think I’ll recruit someone from the task force tomorrow.” 

“And how are you planning on explaining your suspicions to the sheriff?” She dreaded his response. 

“The hospital seems like the most logical location for the kill site, don’t you think? We’re just being thorough,” he assured her. “Don’t worry Scully, I’m not going to put out an APB for the boogeyman of Pasteur County...yet.”

Well, that was some comfort at least. Scully sighed and steeled herself for the onslaught of memories awaiting her on the other side of the door. They slipped on gloves.

“I assume you want to start in the morgue?” she asked as Mulder worked the lock. 

“Unless you have a better idea. Right now I think the 1989 murder is the biggest lead we’ve got.”

“I’m more inclined to say the ten bodies waiting for autopsy is the biggest lead we’ve got,” she groused. 

Mulder ignored that, holding open the door. “Lead the way, g-woman.” 

The sharp click of her pumps on the tiled floor startled her as though she’d expected the muted footsteps from the nursing shoes she used to wear. She could practically feel the braid down her back and the baggy scrubs shifting across her body. She touched the handle of her Sig, holstered where she once clipped a pager. The feel of the cool, solid metal was a small but reliable comfort.

A sharp prickle stung the back of her neck. Her hand instinctively flew back to the area and a gasp escaped her throat. Finding only the fresh, puffy scar, she resisted the urge to scratch. 

“You okay?” Mulder asked, his brow wrinkling. 

“Fine. I think something bit me,” she responded absently, trying to ignore the troubling sensation. An itch didn’t mean the chip was _doing_ anything, she reminded herself. It simply meant the wound was healing. Still.

He seemed to accept her explanation. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t see any bats.” 

“Thank God for small mercies,” she mumbled. “Morgue is through here.” 

She indicated a double door without a sign. In her experience, hospitals liked to keep their morgues out of sight and out of mind on the basement floor, or else they were left unmarked. It didn’t do much good to remind patients that people routinely died there.

They left their umbrellas propped up in the hall. The only source of light in the morgue was a single window near the ceiling, and they switched on their flashlights. _“Natural light!” Amy had exalted with open arms. “I’m the envy of all my ME friends.”_

Inexorably, Scully was drawn to _the spot_ , where Mulder’s flashlight beam met hers.

“That’s where it happened,” he said quietly. “Amy Matsuda’s murder.”

She almost laughed, wondering how long she could continue her lie by omission.

Everywhere she looked, she saw a ghost: Amy kneeling over a body with a furrow in her brow, biting her lip. Amy scrubbing her hands in the sink as she jauntily shared the most gruesome details of her day, pleased to have a sounding board who was more curious than disgusted. Amy wild-eyed, frantically searching the cabinets for something she would never find. 

Scully shook away the competing images. 

The morgue was remarkably well-preserved, she noted as she wandered past the gleaming tables. There was very little dirt on the floor, certainly not enough to capture footprints. She’d expected stained and graffitied walls, strewn trash, disarray. Instead, it looked like it had the last time she’d seen it. With a gloved hand, she turned on the water in the sink, staring at the water swirling down the drain. Clockwise, she confirmed despite herself.

Mulder moved to the cold storage freezers, shining his light in each cubby. 

“Broken latch,” he noted, pointing toward the door on the bottom right. 

“Always been that way,” she told him. Her beam caught on something gold and shiny tucked in the narrow space below the freezer. With tweezers, she pulled out a gold condom wrapper.

“Thorough search my ass,” Scully muttered. “I wonder what else they missed.”

“Magnum XL,” Mulder said with a smirk. “Lucky lady.”

“Magnum is a marketing ploy,” she countered on autopilot as she tucked the wrapper in a baggy. “They charge extra for virtually the same fit.”

Mulder continued pulling open cubby doors as he responded. “Have to respectfully disagree with you there.”

“Oh?” she asked with a playful lilt, enjoying the pleasant distraction.

“It might not seem like a big difference, but a man notices. Comfort-wise.” He flicked his eyes to her before shutting the last freezer door with a decisive click.

Scully felt herself grow warm under her collar. New images arose in her mind, temporarily overriding the unpleasant ones, as she teetered on a see-saw between desire and dread.

“Expiration date November 2001,” she noted before pocketing the evidence. “Condoms have a three-to-five year expiration date.”

“Newly purchased, then. I think this is where our couple was attacked, Scully.” Mulder moved to the cabinets, finding the assortment of dishes, antiseptic and dissection equipment she would have expected to find in any morgue. 

“We’ll send in a team with Luminol ASAP.”

“Morgue sex,” Mulder mused. “So that’s what the kids are up to these days.” She could see his mind working as he scanned the room. “They came here to get it on and our _perp_ ”—intoned in a way that meant Thornton—“caught them. Let’s hope it was after the act. How does one have sex in a morgue, Scully?”

“From behind,” she answered too quickly, the quirk of Mulder’s mouth confirming he’d noticed. “On the table or against the wall. Anything to reduce skin contact to surfaces.”

“Sounds like you’ve given it some thought, Scully. All that time spent in autopsy bays...are you really just working on the living?”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s common sense.”

Mulder moved closer until she could feel his body heat, and her eyes widened. 

“So, let’s say we’re Ellen and Scott,” he said matter-of-factly. 

He gently positioned her against the wall and took the flashlight out of her hand, setting it on the table next to his where they shone twin orbs on the wall. His breath tickled her neck as he put his gloved hands lightly on her waist. She bit her lip, focusing on the slight pain instead of the urge to roll her hips back like an animal in heat.

“We hear a noise,” Mulder continued, lifting his hands from her body. “I tie off the condom and pull up my pants. We turn around and see him.” He stopped to consider. “Our guy entered through the door, or he was waiting for them in one of the freezers.”

Her arousal evaporated as she thought of someone emerging from cold storage. 

“I have the instinct to protect my girlfriend.” He met her eyes for a long moment. “I struggle with him. Doubtful we’ll be able to tell just how much from the body.”

She agreed, “Unless he was cut to the bone or broke something in the struggle, it’s likely any evidence of defensive wounds would have decomposed by now.”

“I tell Ellen to run.” Mulder mimed being locked in a fight grip with someone. Scully moved to the other side of the room in compliance with his recreation. “Then I get put down with a blow to the head.”

“I will be able to tell better from the autopsy,” Scully said. “But from the photos, it indicated blunt force trauma to the back of the head, consistent with a flat object or hitting his head hard on the floor.”

Mulder’s eyes glazed over as he visualized. “So he’s killed accidentally or on purpose. The perp moves to Ellen, and Ellen is captured. Either brought to a new location or kept in a room that has since been cleaned out.” 

“You think he was killed outright in the initial attack, and she was held captive?”

“Didn’t it appear to you that his body was in a more advanced stage of decay?” he asked.

“I mean, it’s difficult to say after so much time has passed.” She shrugged. “There are a variety of factors including the depth of the graves. It appears his burial spot may have been more shallow.”

“Maybe our perp’s strength varies,” he suggested. “If he steals the majority of his food from campers, he would go longer without during off-seasons.” 

“Yet he still has the strength to kill?” She raised an eyebrow.

“We’ll confirm that when we find him.”

Scully picked up her flashlight from the autopsy table. She tried not to think about how her friend had looked on the slab, sliced from chest to pubis. 

“I think we have what we need here,” she said.

Mulder agreed, “We’ll send the forensics team back out here tomorrow when we start searching the walls.” 

They moved to leave. Like a hand closing around her spine, Scully was gripped by the sensation that she was being watched. She whipped around, unbuckling her holster in the process. When she saw it, bile rose to her throat and all the tiny hairs on her skin stood on end.

Amy stared at her, her face drained of blood. Her cleaned wound exposed broken strings of her arteries and a small layer of subcutaneous fat, precisely as Scully had remembered from the autopsy. Blue lips moved in an urgent pattern, soundlessly speaking words Scully could not recognize. Just as she had all those years ago when her father appeared to her, she wished she had learned to read lips. 

She squeezed her eyes shut, expecting the vision to vanish when she opened them back up. But Amy was still there, rendered in perfect clarity: pale pink scrubs over Doc Martens, her delicate features contorted with fear instead of her characteristic humor. Her eyes were fixed on somewhere in the middle distance, and her lips worked ceaselessly, her wound moving in time with her mouth like flapping gills. 

Scully’s knees began to buckle, and the ground rushed up to greet her.


	5. Chapter 5

A strong arm looped around Scully’s waist, holding her upright. She allowed herself to lean into Mulder’s sturdy warmth for only a second before straightening and pushing him away.

She looked back to the apparition, but there was only a blank wall. She’d only been on the case for a day and already her mind played tricks on her. She needed to get herself together, _now_. 

“What’s wrong? What happened?” he asked in a rush.

“Dizzy spell.” She blinked hard. “We should really wear masks in here; for all we know, there are black mold spores everywhere.”

Mulder scanned the spotless wall, but he didn’t contradict her. “Let’s get you some fresh air.” 

She nodded. “I want to check out the campground where Ellen and Scott’s tent was found. It’s only a ten-minute walk from here.”

“If you’re up for it.” He sounded apprehensive.

“I’m fine,” she attempted to assure him, brushing down her coat and adjusting the belt. 

“Right,” he said tightly.

Hopefully she could ignore the tension between them until it evaporated. She didn’t have the energy to fight. She also didn’t want to spend any more time in the hospital than she had to but leading them out through the front entrance meant she wouldn’t have to fight the mud surrounding the perimeter like a filthy moat. 

She felt like she was floating as she led them down the labyrinthine halls. The membrane between the past and the present seemed thin, and she could faintly hear echoes of purposeful footsteps and barked orders, codes dictated over the intercom, the hiss of wheeled beds. She could even pick up a faint smell of antiseptic and stagnating humans. 

Just like the morgue, the lobby was remarkably intact with even the chairs arranged just as she’d remembered, not even a single end table out of place. They passed by the front desk where the overtaxed and irritable Denise with the dated perm had greeted her on her first day with, “Welcome to Hell.”

She couldn’t wait to leave, but she forced herself to take even steps in time with Mulder. The second they stepped outside, Scully gasped damp, frigid air in her lungs. She could feel Mulder’s eyes on her, and she studiously avoided looking back at him.

Fisher and Ward were making their way back to their marked car. The sheriff shook his head to answer their question before they’d even asked it. “Looks like we found the last of them. We have a couple other spots to dig, but they’re far away from the other graves, so I don’t think it’s very likely.”

Mulder agreed, “He seemed to keep them clustered fairly close.”

“You find anything in there?” he asked with a suggestion of a challenge.

Scully pulled the bagged evidence from her coat pocket and waved it at him, keeping her face intentionally blank. If she wasn’t so shaken up, it would have taken effort not to look smug. 

“Just what were you two doing in there?” The sheriff directed a smirk at Mulder.

“It’s newly purchased,” Scully said smoothly, well-practiced in ignoring such comments. “We think the morgue may have been where Ellen and Scott were attacked.” She was impressed at how normal she sounded, but her voice seemed to come from very far away. At least her neck had stopped itching.

“We’ll need the morgue and surrounding hallway to be fully fingerprinted and sprayed with Luminol,” Mulder said.

“I’ll call the forensics team as soon as we get out of the dead zone,” the deputy offered.

“No cell reception up here?” Mulder asked as he confirmed on his phone.

“Just around the hospital,” Ward answered. “You get bars just down the road.”

They made plans to reconvene at the police department the following morning, and Mulder and Scully set off toward the campground. 

A soft carpet of pine needles and bark soon replaced the mud. Mercifully, the rain let up into a mist, but Scully still held her umbrella tightly. As the hospital vanished behind them, obscured by a curtain of trees, the silence between them only seemed to grow more pregnant. 

She stumbled against a tree root, waving away Mulder as he reached to help. “Forgot my hiking boots,” she half-joked in a poor attempt to alleviate the tension. 

“You sure you want to do this now?” Mulder asked. “Sun’s going to set soon.”

“I’m fine, Mulder. Really.”

“Fine,” he echoed tersely. 

She continued to walk, glancing behind her to find Mulder wasn’t following. Instead, he stood with his arms crossed.

“What?” Her voice was starting to raise. “Let’s go. I said I was fine.”

“I heard you.” His voice was pure ice, and she knew there was no avoiding an argument. Her stomach plummeted, and she pursed her lips, waiting for him to speak his mind. As much as she enjoyed their bickering, she loathed fighting with Mulder. 

“I can’t do this again,” he said through gritted teeth.

“What do you mean?”

The muscle in his jaw twitched. “This ‘I’m fine’ crap. _I can’t do this again._ ”

“I don’t know what you want me to tell you,” she sighed, raising her arms helplessly.

“I want you. To tell me. The truth.”

“I _am_ ,” she protested.

“No. You’re not,” he said, maintaining that low tone that made her feel as if she’d plunged into an ice bath. “You’re not fine, Scully. And the last time you kept telling me you were fine, it turned out you’d been lying to my face for _weeks_ about metastatic Stage 4 fucking brain cancer.” He uncrossed his arms to point at her furiously. “Do you have any idea what it felt like, finding out the way I did? My closest friend couldn’t even tell me she was _dying_. And now...” He stopped to breathe in sharply.

Scully stood stunned, her mouth hanging open. There were a thousand things she could say, but her vocal cords refused to work.

Mulder continued, “And now...and now you practically faint on me at the hospital, and you expect me to accept that you’re fine? Why the everloving fuck would I believe you, Scully?”

Even though she knew they were out of earshot, she couldn’t help glancing around them. “I—” she started.

“If you can’t trust me enough to be honest with me, I just...I don't know how to do this. This partnership, this _friendship_.” The way he spat the last word felt like a slap in the face. “If you can’t trust me, why are you even here? What are we do—”

“I saw her,” she interrupted. “I saw Amy. In the morgue.” Relief flooded her body as the words left her mouth despite the fact that she would have to explain herself and she had no explanation for what she’d seen. 

“Amy Matusda, the murdered medical examiner?” Mulder’s voice was softer, his anger appearing to deflate.

“Yes. I can’t begin to explain why. It must have been my mind playing tricks on me. But I could see her so clearly.” She shook her head, pinching the bridge of her nose.

Mulder guided her to a log where they sat, her feet dangling above the forest floor. The damp bark was pillowy beneath her, and she dug her nails into it.

He waited a few beats before asking, “Did she say anything?”

“She made no sound. Her mouth was moving, but I couldn’t make out any of her words. But she looked just like she did when...” Scully closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. “I knew her,” she said finally, meeting his gaze directly.

“I assumed as much,” Mulder said.

“I mean, I _knew_ her.” The words started to flow freely, encouraged by the tender way he looked at her. “She was my friend. Melissa’s girlfriend. The love of her life, actually. I lived with them when I worked here.”

“Oh, Scully,” he said gently, putting a hand on the back of her neck like he was scruffing a kitten. She relaxed into his touch, warmth seeping from his hand down her spine. 

“You would have liked her,” she continued. “She was so full of life. She thought she was invincible. Sort of like you.”

Mulder let out a small chuckle. 

Tears threatened to spill, but she kept them at bay. She brushed the shredded tree bark from her hands and picked at the debris under her fingernails as she spoke. 

“The day they found her, I knew something was wrong as soon as I stepped foot inside. There was a kind of hush over the place, like it was a library instead of a hospital. Like even the patients knew to be quiet. My colleagues wouldn’t look at me, and they told me…” She paused, swallowing. “I went straight to the morgue and saw it was sealed up with crime scene tape, officers positioned outside to block the entrance. I saw the detectives leave, Glenn Meyer and Darren Ortega. They told me in that reassuring voice—you know the one we use—that they’d do everything they could to find out who did this. They weren’t even out of earshot before I heard them talking about where they were going for lunch, and it infuriated me. How could they think about lunch when they had a murder to solve?” She huffed a laugh. “How many times have we done that, gone for a meal after a crime scene?”

“Contrary to popular belief, we’re still human,” Mulder quipped.

An animal rustled a bush in the middle distance, and she stared at it. “Telling Melissa was the hardest thing I’d ever done. At the time.” Burying Melissa had been infinitely harder. “I thought assisting on Amy’s autopsy would be difficult. It wasn’t. It gave me answers, real ones. I learned she didn’t go down easy.”

Mulder lightly squeezed the back of her neck.

“They found another type of blood on the scalpel. Blood under her fingernails. They think she fought him hard. Scratched at him. Cut him.” The corners of her lips quirked up. “I wouldn’t have expected any less.”

“With his other victims, he must have gained the advantage on them. He couldn’t figure out how to sedate her, so he killed her instead,” Mulder posited.

“You’re so confident it’s him,” she remarked. 

He lifted his hand from her neck and rested it on his thigh. She longed to reach for him.

“I think whatever answers we find about these murders will lead us to the truth about what happened to your friend,” he said thoughtfully. “And when we catch this guy, maybe we’ll be able to link the murders directly.” 

His confidence was a balm. It was a longshot that the DNA evidence wasn’t depreciated, but the prospect of a clean answer for something that gnawed at her for nearly a decade was alluring. She didn’t dare hope, but she could let Mulder do the hoping for both of them.


	6. Chapter 6

Azalea, CA

Nov. 7, 1997

While Mulder had taken the equally unpleasant job of contacting the families of the known victims, Scully had spent all morning and the better part of the afternoon examining the victims’ bodies. Accepting the coroner’s assistance was a gamble that ended up paying off. Like many coroners, he lacked formal medical training, but as a funeral director, he had a solid working knowledge of anatomy and decomposition. He easily identified missing bones from the skeletal remains—mostly phalanges and other small bones that tended to get pulled up by the soil and taken by predators—and offered insight into the dental work they found in one of the unidentified bodies that placed one victim’s death before the late-70s. Still, the hours of work hadn’t led to any substantial leads, and her body ached from hours on her feet stooping over the autopsy table. The drive to Ellen’s apartment wouldn’t take long, but the passenger seat was a welcome respite.

With a single hand draped over the steering wheel, Mulder picked sunflower seeds from a bag in the center console and dropped the shells in a cup holder—his compromise when she asked him to stop spitting out the window. The growing, soggy pile was somehow endearing rather than disgusting. 

She, however, felt disgusting. While skeletonized corpses didn’t have an odor, the stench of bodies in advanced decay had a way of lingering. Despite having vigorously scrubbed herself in the autopsy bay’s locker room, the smell clung to her nostrils. She surreptitiously sniffed her suit. 

“You smell fine,” Mulder assured her, confirming she hadn’t been as subtle as she thought. “I might even go so far as to say you smell _pleasant_.”

She touched her hand to her mouth, hiding an involuntary smile. 

Fifteen minutes on the highway took them to the town of Wilkes, twice the size of Azalea, but little more than a bland sprawl of chain establishments and generic lower-middle class neighborhoods. 

Mulder found the apartment complex easily, and they took their chances on a parking spot with the faint outline of a number scraped away either intentionally or by time and weather. After some difficulty navigating the labyrinth of homogenous buildings, they found apartment #61A. They climbed a narrow staircase in single file and knocked on the door. 

A shadow passed over the peephole, and the door opened slightly. A woman regarded them warily from behind the chain, her warm brown eyes red-rimmed and puffy. 

“Josefina Alvarez?” Scully asked.

“That’s me,” she said cautiously, narrowing her eyes.

“We’re Special Agents Mulder and Scully with the FBI,” she said, gesturing between them. Mulder pulled out his badge. “We have a few questions about your former roommate, Ellen Larson. Do you have some time?”

Josefina's lower lip began to tremble, and she shut the door hastily. For a moment, they thought she was refusing the interview, but she was only unlatching the chain lock. The young woman wore tight-fitting sweatpants and a loose t-shirt that advertised Chico University, her dark hair was scrunched into stiff ringlets that flowed almost to her waist. A tiny dog of an indeterminate breed trotted up to her ankles, and she scooped it up and held it securely to her breast. 

“Let’s do this,” she sighed. With her chin held high, she led them into a living room that smelled of lemon cleaning products. The carpet looked freshly vacuumed, though it bore the ancient stains of former tenants. Scully recognized the signs of a thrift store-decorated apartment: the mismatched, scuffed furniture and eclectic variety of landscape paintings. There was a sweet earnestness to the place, like she and Ellen had gone to great lengths to make it look adult on entry-level wages. 

“Thank you for speaking with us, Ms. Alvarez,” Scully said as she sat down on a leather sofa that threatened to swallow her. She wondered how on earth it had made it up the stairs. 

The girl perched at the edge of a fuchsia papasan chair, her dog stretched out on her lap, exposing a round pink belly for petting. Chips of cherry red nail polish were bright against the dog’s white fur as she absently scratched the creature. 

“You can call me Jo. Everyone does,” she said brusquely. “You find anything about Ellen?” 

“What have you heard?” Mulder kept his tone mild. 

“Just what’s in the paper. They recovered her body along with a bunch of other bodies.” She swallowed hard.

“That’s right,” Scully said, matching Mulder’s soft tone. “We’re very sorry for your loss.” 

Jo pressed her lips together. “When she didn’t come home that night, I knew something was wrong. When they never found her…” She paused to collect herself, looking down at her dog and sniffing. “I knew she was gone.” She raised her chin suddenly, eyes boring into Scully’s. “They didn’t say the word serial killer. But that’s what it was, wasn’t it? You don’t just find bodies buried like that. She was murdered,” she finished thickly.

They glanced at each other, wordlessly deciding how much to share. 

Scully said, “We need your cooperation keeping this quiet.” God knew how the sheriff had managed to keep the press from speculating about a serial killer on the loose. 

At the girl’s nod, Scully continued, “But yes, we’re investigating it as a serial case.” 

Jo nodded again, slowly, as though she’d longed for an alternative explanation and was finally coming to terms with the reality.

“Her parents said you were very close,” Mulder prompted. 

“Since high school,” Jo responded. “We were best friends.”

“How long did you live together?”

“A couple years. Her last roommate was a nightmare, so we decided to give living together a shot.”

“How did it work out?”

Jo frowned, probably wondering if she were a suspect. Her voice was tight when she responded, “It worked out great, for the most part. ‘Course we had a few points of tension. You always do when you live with someone. But Ellen was quiet. Tidy. And in the last year, she didn’t even sleep here half the time, so I got the apartment to myself.” She said it sadly, as though, in retrospect, she regretted enjoying the alone time.

“Because of Scott?” Mulder asked.

“Yeah. You know how it is in the first year of a relationship. Honeymoon phase, or whatever.”

Mulder smiled at the girl and made an affirmative noise, and Scully felt a tightness in her chest. Having never experienced a honeymoon phase like it had been described to her by her sister and the media, she pushed away a distasteful feeling of resentment toward the subject of Mulder’s reminiscence. To force herself to focus, she scribbled a few notes about Ellen’s relationship. 

“Did you know Scott well?” Mulder inquired.

“He kept to himself, so not really. She spent more of her time with him at his place. He lived alone, so, you know...” Jo tilted her head and paused for them to fill in the blanks. 

“Did they have a good relationship?” Mulder leaned forward, his elbows on his thighs. 

“Yeah. She was happy. It got annoying sometimes.” Jo let out a bitter laugh.

“How did they meet?”

“At work like four years ago, this call center cubicle job. Ended up being a scam. They instantly hit it off, like, she called me gushing about how she met this guy who was real cute and into the same shit she was.”

“What were they into?”

“Documentaries, history, true crime,” Jo listed. “She couldn’t get enough true crime. When she moved in, she had a whole box of Anne Rule. She spent a lot of time on those—what are they called?—internet forums.” 

Scully made a note to check Ellen’s computer history. 

“Was true crime an interest you shared with her?”

Jo flinched. “No way. I mean, I enjoy a good scary movie now and then but that it’s fiction, you know? She got me to read _The Stranger Beside Me,_ and I didn’t sleep for like a week.” 

Mulder made an affirmative noise and redirected the conversation. “You mentioned Ellen and Scott were only together for a year, but they met four years ago.” 

“She was in love with him for years,” Jo said with an eye roll. “It was exhausting, to be honest. She didn’t know what to do about it. She didn’t want to risk the friendship, but it was obvious to everyone that it was making her miserable. She confessed it to me when she was drunk, like it was some big secret, and then got mad when I laughed.”

“So she told him how she felt?” There was a strangeness to Mulder’s voice that Scully didn’t know how to interpret. Maybe she was imagining it. 

“Like, months after she talked to me about it. I guess she had to work up the nerve.”

“And he felt the same way?” Scully asked. She felt herself holding her breath.

“We all knew he did. It was obvious he was in love with her too.” Jo twisted her mouth. “They only had a year before, you know... but they were so happy. Of course, I was a little resentful of it all. I felt like my best friend was leaving me. But now, I’m just glad they had that time.” She started chipping away at the remaining polish on a thumbnail. 

“They stayed happy?” The words felt thick in Scully’s throat.

“Right up to the end.”

At least they had that. “Jo, what do you know about the night they disappeared?” Scully used her most soothing voice, in case the question led the girl to think she was a suspect. 

“I know they went camping up by that hospital.” Jo drew herself upright, guarded.

“Do you think they had any reason to go inside Silverwood General?”

“I don’t know,” she said too quickly.

“Jo, if you have any information about that night, you need to tell us,” Scully said, slightly stern.

Jo sighed. “You have to promise me this stays out of the media.”

“We don’t disclose whatever you tell us to the media,” Scully promised, though she knew they had very little control over what might get leaked to the press. She felt a pinch of guilt. If Jo confirmed they were at the hospital to have sex, that was already in the official report.

Scully and Mulder sat impassively as Jo studied them both in turn. Evidently, she decided they were trustworthy. “Ellen and Scott...they weren’t just into history. Scott was an urban explorer.” She paused as if waiting to see if she needed to explain. “He would break into abandoned buildings and restricted areas to take pictures. And Ellen...she’d never done it before, but she loved that shit. There isn’t much _urban_ around here, if you know what I mean, but they would still manage to find places to explore. Abandoned houses, old barns. I know it wasn’t legal, but it was harmless. I mean, it was dangerous, but they weren’t hurting anyone.” 

“Did you ever join them?” Scully asked. 

Jo let out a sudden bark of a laugh. “No way,” she answered quickly. 

“We’re not here to implicate you in any way,” Mulder assured her. 

“It’s not that,” Jo said, a hint of pink appearing on her cheeks. “It’s...never mind. It’s not important.” 

“Anything could help us solve this case,” Scully said. “No matter how trivial it may seem.” 

Jo bit her bottom lip, frowning at the carpet. “They started, you know, hooking up in the places they explored. Ellen said she’d never had a bigger rush. The two of them liked to experiment, and believe me, I got all the gory details. But she said nothing gave her more of a rush than when they did it in those old buildings.” Jo shuddered. “God knows why. All I could think about was getting bit by a black widow where the sun don’t shine, you know?” 

Scully smiled politely. “You think they went to Silverwood General to have sex?” 

“I think they went to explore and take pictures,” Jo said carefully. “And, yeah, they probably had sex.” 

Scully asked, “So you don’t think they would have been meeting anyone else at the hospital?”

“No way,” she stated flatly. “Ellen told me everything. They never brought anyone else into their adventures, and they were way too wrapped up in each other to look for a third.”

Scully kept her face blank and out of the corner of her eye snuck a glance at Mulder, whose only reaction was a faint twitch of the mouth.

“What did you think about her breaking into the hospital with Scott?” Mulder balanced as close to the edge of the couch as he could manage. 

“I didn’t like it. I told her so.” Scully could tell from the way Jo tightened her jaw that she was starting to shut down again. She willed Mulder to be careful with his approach. 

“How did she react to that?” Mulder asked.

“We fought. I told her how I felt, and she didn’t want to hear it.” Tears started to well in Jo’s eyes, and she blinked hard.

“Were you getting concerned about the explorations in general, or was there something about this place?” he pressed. 

The dog started to squirm in Jo’s lap, and she set it on the carpet where it scampered into an oversized bed, stretching luxuriously. 

After a long pause, Jo said, “It was the place. I don’t know...I guess it felt different, even though it was probably safer than all those rotting barns.” 

Mulder queried, “Did she talk about the hospital before exploring it?” 

“Yeah,” she said. “That place was like the Holy Grail for them. Like I said, there isn’t much to explore around here other than the woods.” 

“So she knew about its history,” he prompted. Scully sharply swung her head to look at him, unsure how much of his theory he was about to divulge.

“Everyone knows the history,” Jo stated. 

“The hospital does seem to have a reputation around here,” Mulder said.

“Those are just stories they tell to scare campers,” Jo said, crossing her arms. “No one actually believes them.” Her tone was judgmental, but Scully read fear in her expression. 

“Have you ever seen anything?” Mulder persisted. 

“I’ve only been up there a couple times. To camp,” she clarified. “But no.” 

“Know anyone who has?” 

“Like I said, they’re just stories.” Jo narrowed her eyes. “You don’t actually believe in this, do you?” 

Scully jumped in, “Many urban legends were spun from an actual event. We need to rule out the possibility that there were actual sightings of a suspicious person in the area, whoever that person may be.” She shot Mulder a pointed look.

Jo nodded, accepting that. 

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Scully asked. “Anything at all?”

Jo shook her head, wrinkling her brow in focus. “Not that I can think of.” 

“If anything comes to mind, you call us immediately, okay?” Scully handed her a card. “My cell number is on the back.” 

“Okay.” 

“We appreciate your time,” she said sincerely, standing to shake Jo’s hand. 

The dog scampered over to Scully and pawed at her legs, a behavior that would have been much more annoying if the dog wasn’t so tiny. Scully knelt down to pet it, only to have the dog hop into her lap, squirming around and attempting to lick her face. She couldn’t help laughing as she tried to pet the wriggling animal, despite the layer of white fur it left on her black slacks. 

Jo smiled. “She likes you.” 

“What’s her name?” 

“Button. I got her as a puppy. My mom kept saying she was cute as a button, and it just stuck.” 

“She is very cute,” Scully agreed, as Button wagged her tail, panting with excitement. 

“Hey, what’s your partner doing?” Jo demanded. 

Scully swung her head up to see Mulder wandering the apartment, looking at framed photos in the hallway. She handed Button back to Jo and, looking at Mulder, jerked her head to the door. 

“Thank you again for your time,” Scully said. “We’ll see ourselves out. And again, if you remember anything at all…”

Jo held the card up. 

“Nice diversion with the dog,” Mulder complimented Scully as they walked down the stairs from the apartment. 

“It wasn’t,” she said wryly. “Next time ask to use the bathroom like you usually do when you want to snoop.”

They wound their way back through the apartment complex. They must have made a wrong turn because the car wasn’t where they remembered parking it, and each building was deceptively identical. 

“She seemed pretty afraid of that hospital, for someone who doesn’t believe the legends,” Mulder commented.

“Not wanting her friend to break into an old, creepy abandoned building seems pretty rational to me, urban legend or no.”

“Now where have I heard that one before?” 

“At least you keep your clothes on,” she retorted.

Mulder appraised her as they rounded a corner. “Maybe that’s only because I haven’t found someone to do the deed with me when I’m illegally trespassing.”

She shot back, “Black widows and tetanus shots aren’t most women’s idea of a good time.” 

He responded with an exaggerated pout. 

“Ah ha!” he exclaimed as they finally located the car. He politely unlocked her door first. 

“So you’re telling me it’s still too soon to put out an APB on Thornton?” he asked as they buckled up. 

Scully tucked her chin as she looked at him. “That threat gets more amusing each time you make it.” 

Mulder merely shrugged and turned the key in the ignition. His mind was already made up, she knew. She couldn’t bring herself to voice the feeling, but her gut told her that he was correct. 


	7. Chapter 7

Silverwood General Hospital

December 14, 1988

The hospital was different at night. There were the obvious changes: the fluorescent lights dimmed to a third of their daytime intensity, the lack of bleary-eyed visitors wandering the halls, the staff reduced to a skeleton crew. But there was something else too, a sense of menace and unreality like she’d tripped into an unfriendly alternate universe. 

While most of the Neuro patients were quiet, a few of them vocalized often and forcefully as part of their affliction. But most of these were quieter at night. Intellectually, Dana knew it was common for fear-responses and confusion to worsen at night, but for some reason, the quiet still left her unsettled, as though they were responding to something no one else could perceive.

Regardless, she was pleased to have been placed in the neuro ward , even if she was only filling in after an exodus of nurses. It was a step toward being included in the neurology unit Silverwood administration was always promising to expand, something that had attracted her to the hospital as much as its proximity to her sister. While she hadn’t settled on a field and each unit she’d assisted with so far had tempted her down a different path, she couldn’t shake the allure of neurology. 

She didn’t even mind the graveyard shift. Med school taught her to do well on very little sleep, and she’d developed a knack for taking cat naps wherever and whenever possible. What she hadn’t anticipated was the chaos of the night shift, how she’d have to scramble between patients to make up for the minimal staffing. 

Each night seemed to provide a unique challenge: a floor full of agitated patients, an attempted runaway, a code blue. Tonight, the heater had broken down, and the halls and rooms were filled with as many space heaters as they could find, which was a lot, since climate control malfunctions happened somewhat routinely. The patients seemed content with the extra blankets and didn’t complain much. In fact, the entire ward felt eerily peaceful, a feeling Scully was starting to recognize as the calm before the storm. 

She tried not to think about that as she made her rounds, and her smile was genuine when she checked in on her current favorite patient, Marcia, a woman in her thirties brought in to keep under observation after head trauma from a car accident.

Chart in hand, she asked, “What’s your name?”

“I’ve told you thirty times now and you still don’t remember? I’m hurt.” the woman quipped, keeping her voice low so she didn’t wake the elderly woman in the neighboring bed.

Dana put a hand on her hip, mock angry. It was a game they’d played many times, and Marcia was charming enough that it had yet to become annoying.

“Molly Ringwald,” the woman answered finally, and Dana laughed, checking the box on the file anyway.

“Date of birth?”

“September 17, 1956.” That was the point when she tended to give up on the game so as not to be too tiresome.

“Where are you?” Dana asked.

They both startled at a shriek that pierced through the hospital followed by a string of nonsense words that Dana couldn’t quite place, catching only a few that sound religious in nature—Christ, salvation, something about protection.

“In Hell, apparently,” Marcia said, eyes wide. 

The woman in the other bed started to stir as the cries grew in intensity. 

Marcia sat up on her elbows. “You need to check on that?”

Dana hesitated. She placed it as coming from a late-stage dementia patient named Ruth, who was under the care of Vanessa Lynch. Dana had no desire to step on Vanessa’s toes, knowing the tenuous politics between seasoned nurses and resident doctors. But the patient was clearly not getting any less distressed. 

“Go away go away go away,” Ruth screamed. 

Marcia lifted her eyebrows, assessing her doctor. 

“I’ll be back as soon as I can with your medication.” Clutching her clipboard with her patient charts, Dana rushed down the hallway as fast as she could manage. 

“Don’t! Want!” the cries continued. Ruth sounded more lucid than Dana had ever heard her. Her shouts drowned out all the other noises on the ward. “Go away! Go away! Someone help! He’s— he’s going to—” 

Dana swung the door open to find a room empty except for the patient struggling with the restraints on her wrists. A vein in her temple protruded through skin as thin as rice paper.

“Shh,” Dana soothed, smoothing back tousled, cloud-white hair from the older woman’s face. “You’re okay. You’re okay. Can you tell me what happened?” 

“She was hallucinating,” came a voice behind Dana. Dana whipped around to see Vanessa Lynch, the angular planes of her face fixed in a disapproving frown. “It’s common for dementia patients of this stage to experience vivid hallucinations.” 

Dana swallowed her irritation at the supercilious tone. “We’ve been hearing her for days now. That didn’t sound different to you?” 

Vanessa ignored her. “Ruth, sweetie, it’s time for your Valium, okay?” She pulled a capped needle from her pocket. 

“Wait,” Dana said. “I want to hear what she has to say.” 

Vanessa’s nose wrinkled. “Why?” 

Dana held up one finger and turned back to Ruth. The woman’s eyes protrude, and her neck was a mass of straining, ropey tendons. 

“She’s clearly in distress,” Vanessa hissed behind Dana. 

“What did you see, Ruth?” Dana asked, ignoring the nurse, who scoffed. 

Ruth lifted a tremulous finger and pointed at the end of her bed. “He was standing right there,” she warbled. “Watching me.” 

“What did he look like?”

Ruth gasped out the words, “Bald. His teeth...sharp. To bite me.” She started struggling at her bonds with more intensity. “Don’t let him come back. He’ll bite me. Vampire man.”

“That’s enough,” Vanessa said briskly, shooting Dana a death glare. “Time for you to go to sleep.”

“No!” Ruth shouted. “Take these off! Take these off!” She twisted her wrists against the restraints.

Vanessa held the patient’s arm in a strong grip, not asking Dana to help, and the needle slid in easily. Ruth gave them both one last feral look before her eyes rolled back and her body went limp. The nurse made a note on her patient’s chart, tightened the cuffs on her wrists and breezed out of the room without acknowledging Dana further.

Dana stood still, listening to Ruth’s rattling breaths, unwilling to leave her alone. She could only imagine how terrified the woman must have been, strapped down and unable to escape. Even if the intruder was in her mind, he was real to her. 

The ward grew noisy again, and Dana’s pager beeped. She still had to dispense Marcia’s medication, and she was behind on her rounds. She gave Ruth one long last look before propping her door securely open and leaving her alone. 


	8. Chapter 8

Evergreen Motel 

Nov. 8, 1997

Scully had passed the oversized neon sign advertising the Evergreen Motel on countless commutes, and now the green light bled through the cracks in the ventian blinds in her room. The walls of the interior were painted to provide the illusion of a log cabin, and the dark brown colors gave the room a dusky feel even with both dimmer lamps turned to full brightness. The paint job was the extent of the motel’s uniqueness. Every other feature from the abstract paintings to the generic print on the thin bedspread recalled the cheap motels they’d frequented during her tenure with the FBI. 

As rain softly pattered against the windows, she sat on her bed with her legs extended, still wearing her skirt and shell in an attempt to trick her brain into staying in work-mode. Victim profiles were spread across her lap and the bed. Their names had already seared into her mind, and she turned them over like rosary beads: John Doe, Timothy Sears, Dorothy Duval, Jane Doe, Luke Mendoza, Ryan Huber, John Doe 2, Simon Cobb, Scott Aguirre, Ellen Larson. Ten people whose entire lives had been reduced to bullet points and crude summaries. On the front of each folder, she’d stapled a photograph of them when they were alive. Like most investigators she knew, she needed to keep their living memory at the forefront of her mind. They were all people, not bodies, and the ache of remembering that kept her sharp and focused, despite her fatigue. 

John Doe. No matches to dental records or other identifying features beyond the cheap watch he was buried with. Bone density indicated a long period of starvation. 

Timothy Sears. 42 when he died, or thereabouts. Backpacker who disappeared in the woods five years ago. Divorced with a kid he only got to see during the summer. 

Dorothy Duval. Single with no children. After a run of bad luck, lost her house to the bank, car was repossessed. Seen wandering the streets before she disappeared entirely. She loved baking and aspired to one day open a bakery. 

And of course, Ellen Larson. Scully picked up the folder and stared at the photo of the young woman: a candid shot featuring Ellen grinning unselfconsciously, her pin-straight hair lifted by the wind and swirling around her head like she was underwater. She didn’t socialize much beyond true crime and urban exploration Internet forums. Volunteered at the local animal shelter. Did the brave thing, decided living her life to the fullest was worth the risk of losing a friendship. 

Scully shook her head, banishing the thought. She couldn’t think of the promises she’d made to herself and God as she was dying.

She looked at her cell phone resting on the nightstand, willing it to ring. She hadn’t spoken to her partner in hours. After meeting with the local cops in the small task force, they’d conducted phone interviews with Ellen and Scott’s parents, neither of whom were local. Then, they’d split up. As Scully evaluated the forensic evidence buried with the victims, Mulder had spent the majority of the day searching the walls of the hospital. When the cops assisting him left for the evening, he’d moved to the campgrounds. Knowing the cell service was sketchy in the area did little to stop her stomach from twisting thinking about all the trouble he might be getting himself into. She shouldn’t have left him alone, despite his assurances that he would be fine and their efforts would be better spent split up. 

Back to the victims. They were of all different races, ages that spanned from twenty-one to late forties. With the exception of Ellen and Scott, they were captured alone. Nothing in their known history corresponded: no shared interests or overlapping associates. The only thing that linked them all was their disappearance in the general vicinity of the hospital. Mulder was convinced they were crimes of opportunity, and so far, everything supported that. They were the unfortunate souls who had stumbled on the lair of a murderer. 

What were the alternatives? The killer arrived by car, the victims in the back seat, choosing to dispose of them in a graveyard behind a hospital practically in the middle of nowhere? Even as she imagined the attacks—a hand over their throats, a needle filled with sedative in their necks—she found herself picturing a man in dirty scrubs, eyes wide with madness. Mulder’s theory had fully rooted in her mind. 

Wind whistled through the trees as the rain picked up in intensity, and she winced on behalf of her partner who was almost certainly getting drenched in the campgrounds.

The lamps flickered and went dead, a soft hush falling over the room as it plunged into darkness. Even the green light from the sign vanished. Scully stiffened with surprise, a prickle of unease traveling up her spine. Instinctively, she reached for her firearm on her nightstand. When no one jumped out of the closet to attach her, she admonished herself for her paranoia and used her flashlight to retrieve the candles she carried in her suitcase since they provide their value in her very first case. She found them easily, and set them on the ground next to her. As she rooted for the candle holders and lighter, she made a mental note to pack more tidily next time. 

Her elbow knocked against one of the candles, sending it rolling under the bed. She crawled after it on her knees, the flashlight illuminating the grey clouds of dust under the bed and the candle that had rolled to the center. She reached for it, finding that it was propped against something hard and rectangular. The surface was smooth. Velvet. 

Recognizing the object immediately, she couldn’t help a small snicker as she pulled out the tarot deck. Only in Northern California, in Azalea, would this be what she found abandoned in her room. Having spent a good half of her time in the last five years in hotel rooms, she’d found underwear under the mattress, clothes still hung up in the closet, cult literature deliberately left behind near the Bible, and one time an expensive sex toy. Tarot cards were a first, and strangely it felt like they were left just for her.

Certain her sore eyes would not tolerate reading by candlelight, she set aside the stack of victim profiles and lit the runaway candles, setting one on each nightstand. Then she opened the drawstring bag and spilled the cards into her hand. The backs featured a navy background with yellow stars, and on the front she found the traditional Rider-Waite artwork, though the illustrations had a bit more depth than she’d remembered.

The familiar images evoked lazy afternoons and late nights in Melissa's room. The hush of ritual, the sensory pleasure of slick cards in her hands, the excitement of never knowing what she would draw. Her sister scolding her for shuffling them like a poker deck or talking her through a question about a boy with the gravity of a politician debating whether to enter a war.

Melissa believed the cards reflected the universe sending a message, and of course Scully never subscribed to that. But she still had a desire to know what cards she would draw. It was that same compulsion that had sent her sneaking into Melissa’s room while home alone, pulling cards to create stories of pure chance.

Idly shuffling, she heard her sister’s voice as clearly as if she spoke directly into her ear: _Every deck holds an energy_ . Melissa would be horrified by the prospect of Dana using a stranger’s deck without cleansing it first. Dutifully, she went through the motions. She fanned the cards and blew air across them, feeling ridiculous. _Happy now?_ she asked Melissa in her mind as she stacked the deck and gave it a sharp tap. Then she stared at it, unsure how to proceed. 

She couldn’t use them to ask about the case. Her partner would support their use as they encouraged abstract thinking and looking at the case from new angles. But the idea of letting random symbols distort her investigative mind didn’t sit right with her.

Her instinct was to ask the cards about Mulder, even though she knew he would tease her if he found out she’d consulted them about anything. Or, more likely, he’d mock-flirt in that leering way that both aroused her and cut her deeply, a small taste of what she wanted laced with the implication that any attraction between them was a joke.

But something _had_ profoundly changed between them. She’d felt it in the oncology ward, in the way he’d bookended each visit with a kiss on her forehead or her cheek or the back of her hand like Prince fucking Charming. How he’d silently sobbed with his teeth pressed into the back of her hand when he thought she’d been sleeping. The jagged edges of their partnership had been sanded down by crisis, and Mulder had been expressive of affection in a new, open way. She didn’t want to go back, and she didn’t know how to go forward.

She closed her eyes and held the deck between her palms, focusing her mind on the Mulder Problem. A meditation, she told herself. Preparing herself to confront reality with whatever symbols were presented to her by chance not fate. As she shuffled idly, she felt Melissa’s spirit, as if she were lingering behind her ready to tap her on the shoulder. _I see you’re still asking about boys._

She tried not to think of how badly she wished it was Melissa doing the reading for her. Melissa who knew exactly how to pry the unspoken truth out of her and to reframe the world in perfect clarity. Melissa was the only person Scully could imagine understanding the complexity of her relationship with her partner yet find a way to whittle it down to its most simple elements. 

She cut the deck and drew three cards for a Past-Present-Future spread, setting them face down on the floral patterned bedspread. Then she paused to give her phone one last chance to ring. 

When it was silent, she turned over the first card. The Four of Cups. A man dejected, looking away from an offered cup. Several empty cups sit in front of him.

_Protecting oneself. Rejecting something or someone because they don’t live up to an impossible standard. Disillusion._

Scully released a puff of air and turned over the second card. Two of Swords. A blindfolded woman with swords crossed over her breast in a defensive pose.

_Protecting one’s heart and body from pain. A place of contemplation._

She froze with her fingers on the third card, filled with certainty that she’d draw a negative portant: The Tower, Death, Ten of Swords. Their luck couldn’t last forever; they were relatively young and entirely doomed. 

She was just about to flip the final card when she heard a knock on her door.

“Scully?” Mulder called as he used her spare room key, assuaging her momentary certainty it was their killer on the other side of the door with a syringe of sedative and disease. 

She should be annoyed at him for barging in, but that was how they operated. She always got dressed in the bathroom because she didn’t know when her personal space was about to be invaded. A rumpled, damp Mulder appeared in the doorway. He deposited his muddy shoes at the door and his wet coat on the back of her desk chair. 

“Power’s out?” he asked as he shook some of the moisture from his hair.

“Just happened,” she said. “I have spare candles if you need any. Anyway, what did you find?” Her queasy anticipation of humiliation outweighed her curiosity about the third card. 

“Not much,” he said, sitting on the bed in front of her, one leg propped up and the other foot on the floor. If he noticed the cards spread on the bed, he didn’t indicate that. “Unless you count an angry skunk and a couple of freaked out campers. Freaked out by me, that is. Of course they’d never seen anything. They barely even remembered the story of the Mad Doctor.” 

“You were going from campsite to campsite at night asking if they’d heard about the legends?” She wasn’t sure she wanted him to answer the question. 

“Give me some credit, Scully,” he said, to which she raised an eyebrow.

“I heard a mountain lion,” he explained. “Did you know mountain lions sound like a screaming woman? So I’m running through the woods, trying to find the source of the noise, and I run into this campsite. Once they realized I wasn’t a crazy person—” 

“Debatable but go on.” 

“Very funny. _Anyway_ , they explained to me that I was only hearing a mountain lion. While I had them, I asked them a couple questions about the legend of the Mad Doctor and advised them to take their tent where they were less likely to become mountain lion chow. I didn’t end up seeing any big cats, but a skunk shook its tail at me on the way to the car, and I swear my life flashed before my eyes for a moment.”

“You should get inoculated for rabies, especially if you’re going back inside the hospital,” she scolded gently. 

“I think I’m more likely to need a tomato bath if I get close to that guy again.” 

“Actually, skunks are one of the most common carriers of rabies, along with raccoons, foxes and, of course, bats.” 

“I think you’re just looking for an excuse to play doctor.” 

She rolled her eyes, suppressing a swell of conflicted feelings. “You’re just trying to get out of getting shots again.” 

“Twenty shots to the stomach?” Mulder wrinkled his nose “As much as that would _delight_ you, I’ll take my chances.”

“You’re thinking of post-exposure prophylaxis,” she corrected. “And it hasn't involved shots to the stomach in over a decade. Now, it’s four shots to the upper deltoid, as well as an initial shot of immunoglobulin close to the bite site. Pre-exposure requires only three.” 

“Well, that’s comforting.” He looked down at the tarot cards. “It seems I’m interrupting something.” 

“It’s silly,” she said, bracing herself for his snark. “I found these in the nightstand and...my sister and I used to play with them.” She felt a pinch of guilt at her disparaging phrasing. The readings had felt profound, but she couldn’t help diminish the significance.

“What does this mean?” He gestured over the three cards. 

“The three cards are meant to present the past, present and future,” she explained. 

“Of the case?”

She shook her head.

“About yourself.”

She nodded, her words catching as she opened her mouth to speak. She felt trapped, paralyzed.

“What do they mean?” 

There was no hint of mockery in his voice. She regarded him carefully, steeling herself for his reaction. 

“Well, I hadn’t looked at the last one yet,” she said. She still dreaded the reveal, even though she knew she had no logical reason to. 

“Your future has yet to be revealed. So what cup did you turn down in your past?” he quipped, referring to the Four of Cups. 

“It’s not that literal,” Scully said, suddenly defensive. “They’re archetypes. Tarot just provides a new lens for viewing a situation, a way to attach a narrative to it.”

“What’s the narrative?” he asked, more earnest now. 

“Stagnation. Disillusionment. Apathy. A loss of motivation, passion about one’s purpose in life.”

Her own voice came back to her: _I feel like I’m losing sight of myself, Mulder_.

He didn’t ask her to elaborate.

“And this one?” His voice had grown husky.

For the first time, it occurred to her that it didn’t matter what question she’d asked the cards, the results would in some way be about him. Her life, her work, her everything was wrapped up in him. Not long ago, that realization would have terrified her. Now, it felt oddly comfortable.

Her stomach fluttered. “It means a difficult choice, an inability to see with clarity. Indecision because of fear of the outcome.”

His eyes roamed over hers. She waited for him to ask her how it applied to her life, but he didn’t. It remained unspoken, simmering between them.

He nodded at her to turn over the last one.

Scully could feel the card practically vibrating between her fingertips. _Death_. She knew it would be Death. She flipped it over.

Two of Cups.

Two figures standing face-to-face, handing the other a cup. Above them, an apropos Caduceus of Hermes—the traditional symbol of medicine—and a winged lion’s head. Absurdly, she was flooded with relief.

“What does it mean?”

“It’s actually one of the most optimistic cards in the deck,” she told him, her voice catching in her dry throat. “It represents harmony or a balanced, equal partnership. The formation of a strong symbiotic relationship, or a deeper commitment to one.”

She waited for Mulder to say something, anything, while he seemed to be waiting for her to continue, a bizarre, dazed look on his face. Unable to take the unbearable tension any more, she grabbed the cards. 

“It sounds so silly from me,” she said, not meeting his eyes as she dropped the cards back into their velvet pouch. “Melissa had a way of really making you believe.”

She slammed the nightstand drawer shut, relieved to have the cards out of sight.

“She used to do readings professionally,” Scully continued, grateful to have something else to talk about than the results of the spread. “She worked at this occult store. Not like _occult_ occult; they just sold crystals and herbs and goddess stuff.”

Mulder smiled and shifted on the bed. “You must’ve felt right at home.”

“Every time I visited her I schooled her about the contraindications between herbs and pharmaceuticals,” she said. “I wanted her to educate each customer.”

He let out a small laugh.

“She was the best card reader they ever had. The owner used to say that every time I saw her.”

“You seem to have a knack for it yourself.”

She made a dismissive noise. “All you need is a decent memory and an ability to apply the cards creatively to a situation. Or, if you’re doing a reading for someone else, interpret them vaguely enough they can draw their own meaning. There’s nothing metaphysical about it.”

“Read my cards, Scully,” he asked earnestly. 

“No way,” she stated.

“Why not?” he whined.

“I’m not going to read your cards, Mulder,” she said lightly, dipping her head and smiling at him. “I’ve only dabbled. Melissa was the professional in the family.” 

How had he gotten so close? Only a few inches separated them now.

“I liked her,” he said, suddenly serious. “A lot. I don’t think I ever told you. I only really got to know her when you were…” He made a sweeping motion. 

“She liked you, too,” Scully said honestly. Fondly, she remembered Melissa ribbing her about Mulder. _The man is obsessed with you, Dana._

“Did she? I could never tell.” He pressed a hand to his breastbone, visibly moved.

“She recognized your...devotion.” She took a moment to collect her words. “And she liked your open-mindedness. She thought you would be a good influence.”

He scoffed. “She must be the only one who thought that way.”

“She recognized things which weren’t, well, obvious.” She didn’t know how to describe Melissa’s unique mixture of emotional intelligence, astute intuition, and commitment to utter horseshit.

“I wish I got to know her more,” Mulder said quietly.

“Me, too.”

Mulder’s eyes were soft and wet, catching in the candlelight. She could sense the pull of grief inside him. He stared at her in a way that told her he had something weighty to say. Normally, her instinct was to divert the conversation. But now, it felt right to lean into the moment, into him.

“What is it?” she asked, putting her hands over his where they rested on his thighs. A pleasant tingle spread up her arms.

“When you were sick, I couldn’t stop thinking...” He trailed off.

“About Melissa?”

“About you.” His eyes wouldn’t leave hers. It almost felt like he managed to time his blinks to her’s, so she wouldn’t get a fraction of a second’s respite from his scrutiny. “There was so much I didn’t know about you. So much I wanted to know.”

“Like what?” she fished. Her heartbeat thundered in her head, and her muscles felt paralyzed.

“I don’t know what I don’t know,” he said. “The fact that you read tarot cards, for instance.”

“I don’t—” she started.

“I know.”

He flipped his hands where they rested beneath hers and began to rub her skin gently with his thumbs. They’d touched like that countless times, but it was almost always fleeting. A brush, a squeeze, a quick reminder. This was different. Neither of them moved, and the candlelight imbued the room with an undeniably sensual charge. 

“There must be so much more I don’t know about you.” His voice was barely more than a whisper. “Five years and you never stop surprising me.”

Melissa’s voice in her ear: _You know what to do._

She leaned closer. She said, “I want you to know me.”

He didn’t respond, but his eyes remained fixed on hers. He glowed golden, the shadows on his face subtly shifting.

“I want you to know me,” she repeated emphatically.

With the rain beating steadily at the windows, the candles flickering, the intimacy thrumming between them, they could have been back in Bellefleur five years ago. That night, she’d almost made a move. She’d thrown her arms around him and when she pulled back, she wanted so badly to kiss him. But she’d restrained herself— _she didn’t do that with men she worked with anymore_. When he’d told her that nothing else mattered to him, she had known she’d made the right call.

But that was no longer true. _She_ mattered to him.

She was going to blow everything up, or she was going to have it all. Maybe the Two of Cups was writ into their future after all. At the moment, she could only see one option.

She cupped his face in her palms and felt his breath hitch, his jaw move. Every other muscle in his body was completely still, waiting for her. For all the times she’d fantasized about him spontaneously kissing her, she knew it was her move to make.

She leaned closer, closer, until his features started to swim before her eyes and, finally, their lips touched.

 _Listen to your gut_ , Melissa had always told her. _It knows more than you think._ Before she deepened the kiss, she listened, fearing confirmation that she was making the biggest mistake of her life. But her intuition simply told her that she was making the right choice. The only choice.


	9. Chapter 9

They were utterly still, and then they were a blur of motion. The moment Scully's mouth opened to allow him inside, Mulder was everywhere: his tongue slid against hers; his hands climbed her back; his fingers explored her hair. She was drunk on his mild, yet heady taste and the newness of it all. 

Reluctant to pry her mouth from his, she arched back to give herself enough room to rapidly work the buttons on his shirt, slowing only when she slid it down his arms, indulging in the feel of his biceps. 

They broke the kiss to pull his t-shirt off, and her shell quickly followed. She was pleased to recall that she’d selected her best bra that morning—a new black lace number—as though on some level she knew tonight would be the night. He didn’t care about the bra, though, only what was underneath. He took in the sight for only a moment before unhooking the undergarment and letting it fall around her shoulders. 

Instantly, his mouth was on her nipple, sending warm ripples of pleasure straight to her clit. A moan tore from her throat, loud and unexpected, breaking the silence in their room and probably their neighbors’, too. She couldn’t bring herself to care; he needed to know what he was doing to her. 

Before she could talk herself out of the bold move, she reached for his cock, finding him hard and straining at the zipper. Mulder looked up with wide, achingly vulnerable eyes, drawing in air as a swollen bud dropped from his plump lower lip. 

Her desire reached a painful, howling pitch. If they waited any longer, they would be interrupted. A phone call, a knock at the door, an emergency requiring their attention in the next room over. They might never find their way back to each other, to this moment. 

She pushed him onto his back. He faced the wrong side of the bed, but that didn’t matter; it wouldn’t be the first time they went about something backwards. Now he was hers, all hers, waiting pliant beneath her. For possibly the first time since she’d known him, it appeared he’d been rendered speechless. 

Every muscle in her body felt shaky, her fingers stiff and untrustworthy. Incorporating a breathing exercise she’d learned in med school to steady her hands, she counted to five as she inhaled and again as she exhaled. It worked, and she quickly removed his belt, reflexively salivating at the hiss of leather against cloth and the metallic crunch of the zipper. The tip of his cock was visible from his boxer briefs, and a bead of pre-ejaculate formed before her eyes. 

She reached under the fabric for the humid wilderness of his body and delicately lifted his erection from the binds of his clothing. He shimmied his pants off. As she wrapped a fist around his shaft, she marveled at how perfect his cock looked against her manicured fingers and the pronounced dimorphism of her small hand against his length. 

She needed him inside her — now. The fateful interruption had yet to happen, but the magnitude of what was happening lurked above her like a bloated rain cloud. She needed him inside her because she was starting to believe she might reach a scientifically impossible level of arousal and explode, and she was in the company of someone around which impossible things tended to happen. 

Mulder’s fingers worked slowly on the hidden side zipper to her skirt, all the while her mind screaming at him to hurry up. Despite her rush, she felt frozen in place as he stroked the curve of her waist. His soft caresses sent ripples across the expanse of her skin. 

He said, “I’ve wanted this…” 

She waited for him to finish the sentence: _for so long_ , _since the beginning_ , _since I found out you were going to live_. He didn’t. 

“I’ve wanted this, too,” she told him. 

He peeled the weak adhesive of a knee-high nylon from her skin and gently rolled the sheer fabric down, repeating the process and then discarding them like a shed epidermis. Satin shifted pleasantly against her sex as he looped his thumbs through the waistband of her underwear. He yanked them down sharply, and she gasped at the sudden motion.

She licked her lips, aware of a growing charge in the room, a sense of crackling unpredictability. 

_This is happening, this is happening, this is happening_ , chanted her frenzied mind.

The tip of his cock tickled her parted, swollen lips as she straddled him. She felt certain her cunt dripped on him like an overripe fruit. She tilted her hips, prepared to plunge down on him. 

“Scully, wait…” 

Fuck. 

He changed his mind. He was going to tell her it was a bad idea. Those reasons existed, even if she couldn’t hear them over her relentless, compulsive desire and how right he felt beneath her. Now she would always be the one who first crossed the line, who broke their unspoken rules and lost the five-year game of chicken. 

But he said, “I want to taste you first. Please.” 

Her mouth opened, but the “yes” stuck in her throat.

_I want to taste you first._

“Unless you don’t want…” he hedged. 

“No,” she answered quickly. “I mean, yes. Yes.” Suddenly, she was more nervous than she'd felt the night she lost her virginity. The crash of newness against years of ingrained intimacy sent her head spinning. 

She started to dismount him, but he held her steady with his hands on her thighs. 

“Like this?” His voice cracked.

She knew with complete certainty that he was asking her to fulfill a fantasy. He’d fantasized about her. Her reality shifted, like the walls of a house coming apart to fit back together into a new structure. Was it a long-standing fantasy, all the way from the beginning? Did it start that night when he touched her bare back for a beat too long? Was that fantasy a staple? Was her face mentally superimposed over the actors when he watched his videotapes? 

There was no graceful way to move on her knees, but she didn’t care how she looked. He stared at her like she hung the moon, and his words reverberated in her mind.

_I want to taste you first._

She hovered above his collarbone. For a second, she wondered if there was something wrong with her, a reason he wasn’t moving. Hyperaware of how close her sex was to his face, she knew he could smell her arousal, just as she could. He could probably see it. 

He blinked hard as if to reset himself. Worshipful hands rounded her breasts and traced the contour of her waist. 

“So fucking beautiful,” he muttered as his fingertips glided to the small of her back and the place she marked to spite him. As he slowly spanned her bare legs, she wanted to scream with the frustration of being touched everywhere but where she needed him most. 

He squeezed her ass and pulled her to his welcoming mouth. The sudden explosion of sensation sent her pitching forward. She reached for balance, and he caught her, threading their fingers and holding her firmly in place. 

“I got you,” he murmured. 

She tested his words, leaning against him as she sunk her hips around his head. No matter how hard she pressed against him, he held her upright. She closed her eyes and relaxed into sensation. 

Every moan encouraged him to lap at her more hungrily, to suck at her harder and shake his head like a wet dog. His affirmative noises vibrated against her center.

_I got you._

She let go. Her pelvis jerked against his face as his eager mouth compelled her release. She flew out of bed, out of the hotel, up, up somewhere cosmic and blissfully empty before descending as gently as paper in a breeze. 

Dazed, she fell back, vaguely aware that she had smeared her wetness across his chest. Something told her he didn’t mind. 

She leaned down to kiss him, finding the electric shock of _herself_ on his lips intoxicating. Pushing their interlocked hands to the bed, she pinned him down. He was entirely hers, her toy and her person. 

She released one hand to reach behind her to grip him in her fist, finding him even harder than before. _Mine_ , she thought. A firm stroke elicited a sharp inhale.

As she inched her way back, she pulled his lower lip in her teeth. His lip snapped back as his cock slid inside her welcoming body. White-hot pain split through her, and she stifled a yelp. But it only took one protracted thrust for the ache to melt into ecstasy. Her filled her completely, a perfect harmony. The Two of Cups. 

A small part of her—the side captivated by their constant games of one-upmanship—wanted to impress him. They were undeniably making love, but she wanted to be the best fuck he’d ever had.

She moved faster, harder, forgetting everything except the exquisite sensation of _them_ , losing herself in the way their bodies moved together, wishing it could never stop. 

She hadn’t realized she’d closed them until she felt the pads of his thumbs on her eyelids. When she opened her eyes, she was struck by the rapture in his expression, equal parts affirming and terrifying. She slowed her hips to a fluid roll. 

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey.” 

A laugh burst from her. She pressed her hand to her mouth to stop herself. Fighting another burst of hysteria, she worried he would take her involuntary reaction the wrong way. 

He grinned. “I know,” he said. 

She wanted to respond, but any words that came to mind were inadequate. She’d never been able to label their unique intimacy before, and tonight was no different.

She came back to the reality of her surroundings: the perpetual rain she’d tuned out, the candlelight casting strange shadows across his face, the hint of flame reflected in his eyes. The room was filled with the smell of them, as her body was filled with him. 

She could see his brain working, contemplating what to do with her. He’d proved himself to be an intuitive lover; she eagerly awaited his move. 

He lifted her gently as he sat up, setting her back on his lap where her legs wrapped around him. 

_Good boy_ , she thought. 

Their bodies magnetically interlocked, and for a long moment, neither moved. Forehead pressed to forehead, chest to chest; they were an unruly tangle of limbs and syncopated breaths. They fell into a mutual rhythm, grasping for any untouched skin. Every part of him was within reach and hers to explore. She found herself tangling her fingers in his hair. 

He rasped her name in his ear like he was christening her new. Just as he had all those years ago when she first walked into his office, and he dubbed her Scully, all good-natured derision. His name remained on the tip of her tongue; she couldn’t risk invoking the reality of what was happening so concretely. 

There were other things she wanted to say, but they felt premature: _you feel incredible_ and _fuck me harder,_ and _I love your cock_ and _I love_ —

She cut off the thought before it had time to fully form, unwilling to engage with the perturbation that accompanied it. There would be plenty of time to work it out later. Now, all she needed to do was enjoy him and the simple pleasures his body gave her. 

She twisted her fingers in his hair, tugging gently. He responded with a low growl, nipping at her jaw and kissing down her neck. His teeth closed on her tender flesh. She moaned her permission and untangled her fingers from his hair, so she could dig her nails into his shoulders. The wonderfully excruciating pain from his bites were countered with tender kisses.

If only they could remain locked together forever, moving in synchronized waves, digging into flesh with fang and claw. But because all good things must come to an end, he mumbled in her ear that he was about to come, and she tightened her muscles around him, sealing him inside her. She relished each final thrust, hyperaware that each one brought them closer to _done_. As soon as they separated and faced each other, her panic would froth over like vinegar poured on baking soda. 

Neither willing to part, they remained locked together for a long moment. 

Mulder was the one to finally move, hissing as he slipped out of her. He drew her down on the bed, lying on his side facing her. Mercifully, he wasn’t done with her. He dragged a languid finger down her neck, exploring her body with a touch so featherlight, she shivered. Her terror diffused, a stay granted. 

She recognized his concentration and knew he was committing her body to memory. The thought made her throb with renewed arousal. 

Finally, after touching her everywhere _but_ , he hovered over her and slipped his fingers between her thighs and into the slick mess waiting for him. She arched her spine as he curled his fingers, her toes mirroring the gesture. 

“Can you, again?” he asked quietly. 

She nodded, knowing it wouldn’t take much. She was swollen, excruciatingly sensitive, a hair-trigger. 

“I want to see.” 

He moved his thumb faster, increasing the pressure, and the room filled with the sound of _wet_ against the backdrop of her muted panting, and it wasn’t long before she saw black again, finding him waiting for her on the other side unable to contain his self-assured smirk. 

He lifted his fingers from her body and put the tips in his mouth, tasting the essence of them. In a daze, she took his wrist and drew it to her face, swallowing his fingers whole, sucking hard to promise future attractions.

He was hard again, she noticed just before he slipped back inside her with lubricious ease. He propped himself up with one arm, fucking her with slow, confident thrusts as she kept his finger restrained between her lips, teasing him with her tongue. She reached for his ass and drew him deeper inside her because somehow, despite being wonderfully, achingly full, she needed more. 

His eyes never left hers, pinning her to the bed as surely as she’d pinned him with her hands earlier. There was no doubt in her mind that it meant as much to him as it did to her, but that was too much to contemplate. She didn’t want to think about anything at all. 

When she couldn’t stand the intensity of his stare anymore, she turned around so he would fuck her from behind like the animals they were. 


	10. Chapter 10

Evergreen Motel

Nov. 9, 1997

Scully woke in a fever. Her skin burned, yet it was clammy. She was naked, and there was a man wrapped around her. Was she dreaming? Then she recognized the golden forearm holding her firmly in place, and visions of last night crashed down on her. She could feel the evidence of him in the pleasant burn between her legs and the way her whole body still hummed.

She gingerly tried to move Mulder’s arm, but he drew her closer, his erection rubbing against her lower back. He nuzzled her neck, and she let him kiss her down to her shoulder, unable to stop herself from moaning and craning her neck back. It would take nothing to angle her body so he could slip inside her, and God, how she wanted it. Her body practically begged her to surrender to him.

The alarm clock came into focus with an accusation: 6:42 AM. Twelve minutes past the time she should have started her morning routine.

As the haze of last night wore off, all she could think about was how stupid she felt for having sex—with her partner—on a case. How careless. 

There was no way she could arrive late to the sheriff’s station with this on her conscience. Last night it had seemed like just the right thing to do, the only thing to do, but now they had to live with the consequences. She had to navigate the complexities of their changed relationship, and she had no time or capacity to process any of it. Not when there were at least ten murders to solve. 

It would have been easier if the sex were mediocre, if it hadn’t undeniably laid bare the extent of their feelings for each other. They could have pretended it never happened; they were good at that. But the prospect of working by his side and never making love to him again...she couldn’t bear the thought.

There would be plenty of time to think about that later, but right now, she needed to get ready for work. She squirmed against Mulder who, like a Chinese finger trap, pulled her even tighter, one hand on her breast and the other sliding down her belly. She became suddenly aware of how unclean she felt with her sticky skin and tangled hair. She needed a cold shower to cool her desire and clear her mind. The man wrapped around her had a way of clouding her judgment.

“Mulder,” she hissed. “I need to get ready.”

“We have time,” he mumbled, pinching a nipple. “Wanna start the day right, partner?”

“ _I_ don’t have time.” Her voice came out more snappish than she’d intended, and he released her at once. The loss of him wrapped around her felt like an amputation.

She twisted around, wrapping her arms over her breasts in a fit of self-consciousness, even though there wasn’t a centimeter of her skin he hadn’t explored last night.

Mulder was grimacing at her neck, she realized. 

“What is it?” she asked, wincing at how shrill she sounded.

He touched a spot on his neck.

“Oh no,” she said. “Oh no, oh no.”

“Sorry,” he said. “I got carried away last night.”

“We both got carried away,” she muttered, stumbling from bed to bathroom, dreading what she’d see in the mirror.

She couldn’t look at him as she shut the bathroom door, not wanting to see his hurt. She had lost time to make up for, and a new project in covering the mark. Sure enough, she found an angry red splotch on her neck. She touched it, remembering exactly how he’d felt moving inside her as her moans encouraged him to bite harder, suck harder. What an idiot she’d been. 

There was an undeniable thrill to being marked by him, and if it had been anywhere else on her body—anywhere that didn’t require covering up—she would have delighted in it. She wondered if her nails had left red crescents on his shoulders from that same moment. Maybe he was already in front of his own mirror, touching them and remembering.

She moved through her routine on double-speed until the armor of the coiffed Agent Scully appeared, her daily magic trick.

When he wasn’t waiting in her room, ready to draw her back into his arms and reaffirm their bond—or worse, _talk_ —she found herself both relieved and disappointed. The room still smelled of sex, and she picked up his pillow and held it to her nose for a deep inhale. Then she threw it back on the bed and marched out of the hotel.

The fog was so thick she had to cross the parking lot to confirm their rental car was missing. The air was so cold she had to flip the collar on her coat, and her fingers instantly grew as cold and stiff as they’d been every day during her cancer treatment. Frost dusted the cars and motel roof, and outlined the leaves that crunched under her shoe in silver. Each puddle was covered in splintered ice. 

Scully pulled out her phone, but as soon as she dialed 1 and had her finger on the call button, he pulled up.

“Avocado,” he said, gesturing at the pastry bag in the center console between two coffees. That answered her question about where he’d been. “Made sure they didn’t forget the salt and pepper this time.” 

“Thanks,” she said, smiling at the gesture. He remembered how she always ordered her bagels when they were in California, where the avocados were undeniably better. 

“Coffee’s good,” he said just as she opened her mouth to make a remark about him buying a girl breakfast in the morning. “Though I suppose anything is better than the station coffee.” 

“We should open up an x-file on how it manages to be that weak and that acidic at the same time,” she concurred. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we return to DC with matching stomach ulcers.” 

Though their words were light, Mulder wouldn’t look at her, and she wondered if his reasons were the same as hers. She couldn’t look at the fingers wrapped around the steering wheel without remembering how they felt caressing her body, how her skin lit up in trails of sparks. She couldn’t look at his lips without thinking about how they felt sucking her clit. How electrifying her name sounded as he chanted it, moving inside her, his breath hot on her ear. She touched the mark on her neck, now tacky with concealer, and felt his teeth sinking into her delicate flesh. 

Though her stomach was in knots, she finished her bagel. As she ate, he chatted about the case almost to himself, each second that brought them closer to the station also took them further from acknowledging what happened between them. They had become a stilted, uncanny facsimile of their partnership. 

Scully couldn’t tell if he was simply giving her what he thought she wanted, or if he genuinely thought they would be better off pretending it didn’t happen. Either way, she was left as grateful as she was hurt. 

They both put on an extra veneer of cheer when they said ‘good morning’ to the receptionist and the officers in the bullpen. As they opened the door to the incident room, they were greeted with a loud round of applause. For one fleeting, horrifying moment, Scully thought they were cheering for them, that they _knew_. What if the state cops had moved hotels from the neighboring town to Azalea, and they had heard everything? The thought passed quickly but it left a fierce blush on her cheeks to her chagrin. She started to sweat under her suit, and she willed the makeup on her neck to stay put.

It turned out they were cheering for Officer Carl Calhoun, a jowly, middle-aged bull of a man with a perpetual 5 o’clock shadow, who had just successfully tossed the wrappings of his breakfast into a trash can across the room. His partner, Ryan Marsh, lined up to make his shot. The ball of sandwich paper bounced off the rim of the trashcan, and everyone booed. 

Marsh lifted his hands in defeat. His exaggerated groan stopped abruptly as he noticed Scully and Mulder standing in the door. He and Officer Calhoun took their seats, and Marsh popped a wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth. With the exception of Sheriff Fisher, who reclined in his chair with an easy smile, all eight of the cops in the incident room stood up straighter as the agents entered.

Scully found her seat, so focused on acting natural that every movement felt awkward. They’d managed not to be late, but she couldn’t help feeling that her body screamed _freshly fucked_. Intellectually, she knew the pleasant ache between her legs was for her and her alone, and that no one could see how her brain was still bathed in last night’s dopamine.

She sat down stiffly, her ankle rolling under her heel. She winced and drew breath through her teeth.

“Rough night?” Sheriff Fisher asked, his deputy snorting beside him. Officer Calhoun smirked and regarded her appraisingly. As their eyes crawled palpably over her body, she could feel their imaginations conjuring vivid images of her in compromised positions.

Swallowing bile, Scully stared directly at Fisher and injected as much venom in her voice as she could manage when she asked, “Excuse me?” She tilted her head, waiting for him to explain himself. 

Deputy Ward had the decency to look away, chastened. The sheriff cleared his throat and shrugged. Mulder stiffened, the rage radiating off him palpable. Scully wondered if anyone else could sense it.

Only a splash of cold water would stop her cheeks from reddening further and leaving the room now would incriminate her. It took all her energy to remain composed, though she wished the carpet would open up and swallow her whole.

“You got anything for us?” Mulder asked coldly. “Or does practicing your throw constitute police work around here?”

Scully felt like she’d been dipped in ice. There was no way they didn’t notice his attitude now. The sheriff lifted his eyebrows, confirming that. Goddammit, Mulder. Just yesterday, he would have left a comment like that for her to deal with. Now, he sounded possessive. Everything _had_ irrevocably changed between them.

Ward said, “We have addresses for all the doctors that worked in the hospital during its second run.”

“What about the first run?” Mulder asked.

“They would be in their 80s or 90s,” the sheriff said. “Doesn’t exactly fit the profile.”

“I didn’t realize you were a profiler,” Mulder said snidely. “I thought that was my job. How stupid of me.”

He needed to stop _now_ , and the only thing she could think to do was kick him under the table. It landed a little harder than she’d intended, and he visibly flinched.

“We can’t rule out the possibility that the killer had an accomplice, or they were operating under the instruction of someone older,” she said smoothly. “If the killer had a protégé that continued after he became incapacitated or died, that would explain the time span and the consistencies between all the murders.”

To her side, Mulder cleared his throat and shifted in his chair.

“Who have you found so far?” she asked, her mind whirling through all the doctors she’d known at her time in the hospital.

“Most of them are practicing in Marin or San Francisco County now. A few moved to different states or Southern California. A couple are dead. But we have one that still lives in town.”

She knew the name before she looked down at the paper Ward handed her.

“Ian Parish,” the sheriff said with a note of derision. “He stopped practicing when the hospital closed. Collects tickets at the movie theater now and lives in his dead mother’s house, about a seven-minute drive to the hospital.”

Scully’s eyes widened. She wasn’t surprised to learn Doctor Parish was no longer performing brain surgery, but quitting medicine for entry-level work was exceedingly rare. Perhaps his reputation followed him, and he wasn’t able to find work again as a surgeon.

“Born April 27, 1950,” Mulder noted, reading from the sheet. 

Scully followed his thought process. “We placed the oldest bones as being from the mid-1960s. He would have been fifteen when the first murders took place. Not impossible, but unlikely unless he had an accomplice. We’ll pay him a visit this morning. You get alibis for everyone else on the list,” Scully instructed the deputy. 

“Get anything from the interviews yesterday?” Calhoun asked.

“Nothing we didn’t already know from Ellen’s parents,” Scully said, remembering the visceral wail from the other line as she’d hung up the phone. “Scott’s mother is deceased, and his father moved to Philadelphia with his new girlfriend. We didn’t get anything notable from the phone interview with them.”

“What about the roommate?” The plastic chair bent under Calhoun’s weight as he leaned back.

Mulder responded, “We confirmed they went to the hospital of their own accord. It supports the theory that these murders were all random crimes of opportunity rather than individuals who were selected.”

“That and the fact that all victims are of different races, different genders, taken as a couple or alone,” Scully supplied. 

“There is no discernible pattern between victims,” Mulder agreed. “Except for their relative proximity to the hospital.”

“We’re hoping to get IDs for the Jane and John Does,” Scully said. “Dental records are currently being run against all known disappearances in the area. When they come back, we will need a comprehensive background.”

The sheriff released a low, barely audible sigh. She waited a beat, but he did not voice his displeasure.

She continued, “We need to find if there is anything connecting them, anything at all. If they were patients at the hospital at one point, if they went to the same general practitioner in town, if they were all on the volleyball team in high school, whatever. If we’re to treat these crimes as random, we need to eliminate any possible connections.”

“Couldn’t the randomness _be_ the point?” the sheriff posited. “The killer selects victims that don’t have a connection to each other so we’re not able to lead it back to him?”

“Most serial killers have a type,” Mulder stated with mild condescension. “It’s not always as obvious as Ted Bundy who preferred pretty young women with dark hair and a center part. The Brownout Strangler in Australia selected his victims for having beautiful voices. The Boston Strangler targeted older women. But even if there’s not a thread connecting the victims, most killers will select victims of the same gender or race, usually women of the same race as his own. Granted, there are killers that attack couples, such the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez and the _Original_ Night Stalker in Orange County. But we can see from these bodies that solitary men were attacked along with solitary women.”

“Ramirez intentionally chose different types of victims,” Ward supplied, the sheriff nodding beside him. 

“Ramirez chose victims that were vulnerable—young children, the elderly, couples sleeping at home and unguarded,” Scully said. “They were easier to assault or murder and served his agenda to make everyone in the L.A. area afraid they could be a potential victim. We’re not seeing the same M.O. here.” 

The sheriff took a loud slurp of his coffee. “What are you saying?”

Scully finished, “We think these murders were less about the victims themselves than what they had to offer him. Namely, their brains. It’s possible he held them for a time to perform experiments on them, but either way, they were a means to an end.” 

She glanced at Mulder. The corner of his mouth flicked up, and she was surprised by the swell of relief she felt. _Maybe they would be okay_.

“Did you find any evidence of experimentation in your examinations?” Ward asked.

“Not exactly,” she responded. “If the damage was superficial, the evidence would have decomposed along with their bodies. But we did find in three of the older skeletons a loss of bone density. This indicates a period of starvation.

“Now it’s possible they both went through a period of extreme poverty or illness, or they struggled with anorexia nervosa. They could have suffered from early onset osteoporosis. But it’s medically unlikely to be coincidental, so this indicates to me that they were starved for a period of time as they were being held.” 

“Held where, exactly?” the sheriff asked tightly. “Your partner here had us combing the walls yesterday. We didn’t find a damn thing.”

“That’s what we need to find out,” Mulder said breezily. “Scully, let’s see about a former doctor. Gentlemen.” He tipped his hand toward the cops in a gesture of mock-politeness. 

As they swept out of the building, she walked in stride with him, waiting for the guiding touch of his hand on her lower back. It never came.


	11. Chapter 11

Silverwood General Hospital

Apr. 5, 1989

Dana watched with a dazed fascination as blood soaked through the towel until not a speck of white remained. She dropped the soiled object in a plastic bag and repeated the process, dimly aware of the nurses in the room with her. Vanessa Lynch and her friend and colleague Flora Doyle prepared the body for transport to the morgue. Vanessa helped to lift Walter’s body while Flora positioned the body bag. 

The body had once belonged to patient Walter Selby, a man Scully had witnessed going through a wide array of emotions before his surgery: terror at the upcoming procedure, amusement when the anesthesiologist joked around with him, anticipation at the possibility of relief. Flora zipped the bag shut. 

As the blood swirled under the towel, its stench biting her nostrils, Dana saw the crimson fountain erupt from the man’s brain, each spurt in time with the violent spasms of his body as they attempted to resuscitate him.

She’d spent her scant off-hours studying the steps of the surgery in her bedroom, and in her amateur opinion, it had been executed perfectly. Dr. Parish seemed to agree, and it wasn’t until the tissue had been cauterized, and the slice of skull was ready to be replaced when it went wrong. She’d been powerless to do anything except wait for instruction as blood filled the cavity where the tumor had once been, dripping through the already-soaked gauze surrounding the incision site and pooling around her nursing shoes. The look in the surgeon’s eyes wouldn’t be easy to forget: helplessness, horror and finally, resignation. While his actions reflected only professional instinct, he muttered, “No, not again, not again.” 

Dana had heard about a similar incident, another patient who bled out during brain surgery. No wrongdoing had been determined. 

“Hey intern,” Vanessa Lynch barked. 

Dana lifted her head. “Yeah?” 

“You got it from here?” 

“Yeah,” she repeated vacantly, giving the nurses a wan smile that she hoped didn’t read as macabre. 

The nurses wheeled the body out of the room, and Dana returned to her bloody chore. 

That morning, Dana had been so excited that Melissa had all but begged her to calm down, the last straw having been when Dana knocked into her sister and spilled herbal tea down the front of Melissa’s dress. Today wasn’t Dana’s first surgery. She’d assisted on a punctured lung from a car accident, a hunting accident digging buckshot out of a leg and countless c-sections when she was stationed in maternity. Today was her first brain surgery, something that had fascinated long before she considered med school, and what she expected to cinch her decision to pursue a path in neurology. For a brief window of time, it had. 

She was awed by Dr. Parish’s cool confidence, the way he commanded the room, the quick, clean brutality with which he sliced and peeled the scalp, and drilled into the skull. But nothing she’d seen before had prepared her for the feeling of staring into a person’s living brain, the throbbing mass of pink tissue that comprised Walter Selby’s consciousness and commanded his body. And the obscene mass that pressed into it, hijacking his movements, clouding and manipulating his vision, overriding his personality with anger and confusion. Parish had removed the offending tumor, ostensibly restoring the patient to his former self. Playing God, Scully thought with a thrill that tugged on her Catholic guilt. 

What she hadn’t told Melissa, despite her excitement, was that she was to go to dinner with Dr. Parish next week, which she hoped might increase her chances of being accepted to the neurology department. While she couldn’t help wonder if there was an ulterior motive to the dinner, the matter-of-fact way he approached the subject after Walter’s patient consultation put her at ease. Other than the friendly wink when he offered the opportunity to pick his brain, “so to speak,” he’d been nothing but professional in their scant encounters. 

Though she’d never admit it, part of her hoped his motivations were two-fold. Dana could do a lot worse than the handsome, kindly surgeon that smiled at her when they passed in the halls despite his perpetual rush. She’d been warned away from dating civilians, and her inability to maintain a relationship longer than a few weeks during med school only supported that. In her most self-indulgent moments, she imagined herself a masterful brain surgeon in her own right, the two of them debating patient cases over cartons of Chinese food. 

Those thoughts evaporated when the patient’s blood began to flow in earnest. 

Now she began to wonder if Amy had the right idea by working on the dead. Mistakes were possible: details could be missed in an autopsy; questions could remain forever unanswered. But there was no responsibility to keep them alive: the unique challenge motivated her through med school. The reality was beginning to feel grotesque. 

Dana realized she’d been circling the same spot, doing little more than pushing around the blood in wet streaks. With one final towel and a generous application of disinfectant spray, she thought the job was done, only to realize her shoes tracked more blood across the pristine floor. 

When she finally finished, she hauled the heavy bag of soiled towels to the laundry. Mercifully, she still had another twenty minutes before she needed to start rounds in Neuro: twenty minutes to collect herself before she was again responsible for patient life. 

She headed to the locker room, ready to scrub herself raw. She’d never been more grateful to work for a hospital that gave its residents a place to shower and change, aware the hospitals increasingly did away with such facilities. 

The extent of the mess was visible every time she caught a glimpse of her reflection in glass: blood splattered across her scrubs, streaks on her arms, even smearing her face somehow. She reminded herself the patient was tested for all blood-borne diseases before the surgery, but that did little to settle her roiling stomach. She’d been especially on edge since one of her fellow interns recently had a needle-stick incident with an HIV-positive patient. 

Two showers in the locker room were occupied, sandaled feet visible beneath the curtains. 

As she began to twist her combination lock, careful not to make enough noise to be heard, Vanessa Lynch’s voice carried over the din of the shower. “I can’t believe he still has a job.” 

“I know, right?” said a higher pitched voice that Dana recognized as Flora Doyle. 

“That’s the second time he’s screwed up like that. How many more is it gonna take?” 

“Did you see his pupils?” Flora asked. 

“Pinpricks!” Vanessa exclaimed. “I don’t know how he gets away with it. Kara said his bathroom was filled with scripts from pharmacies from, like, counties over.”

Flora snorted. “If you’re gonna be fucking nurses from work, at least hide the evidence.” 

“And if you’re gonna get high on the job, stick to powder like the rest of them.” 

“It’s like he wants to get caught or something.” 

Dana twisted the lock a couple more times, but she couldn’t seem to get the combination right. She sat down heavily on the bench, humiliation scorching her skin. 

She thought of Parish’s eyes, their clear, soothing blue. The hospital was lit so brightly, she’d never noticed his pupils were always tiny. 

She wasn’t a promising young doctor to him; she was just another easy mark in a long line of easy marks. Her eyes began to prickle with tears, but she couldn’t wipe at them without risking smearing the blood. 

Perhaps she hadn’t told her sister about Parish because she knew on some level that Melissa would see right through it immediately. 

“Did you see the way the intern was looking at him?” Vanessa asked. “Totally his next conquest.” 

“You think? She seems a little square for that.” 

“I’ll bet you a round of drinks at the Tavern.” 

“You’re on. She seems like a private person. I don’t think anyone would find out even if she did. How long are we giving it?” 

Vanessa said, “Two months. And if she does it without anyone finding out, props to her. I’d buy her a drink myself, but I don’t think she goes out much.” 

Biting her tongue so hard she expected to draw blood, Scully opened her locker, no longer caring about being quiet. The rest of the conversation floated over her, their voices sounding far away. 

“You going to Kevin’s thing on Friday?” 

“Working.” 

“See if Elias will switch with you. It’s not like he’s ever doing anything.” 

“I don’t know. If I don’t spend my next day off with Mark, I’m pretty sure he’s filing for divorce.” 

“Bring him! Kevin’s got a live band and everything.” 

Dana worked quickly, balling her soiled scrubs in the back of her locker and moving to the shower hopefully before she was discovered by the two nurses. She managed to slip into the shower just as the nurses finished. She turned up the water as hot as possible, searing the blood from her skin. It burned her pleasantly, until the hot water suddenly ran out, and it turned to ice. 


	12. Chapter 12

Azalea, CA

Nov. 9, 1997 

“Right on Main Street,” Scully murmured as Mulder swung the car out of the parking lot. “Then left on Oak, and another left at the four-way stop.” 

He followed her instructions without response. 

“Mulder?” she asked tentatively. She was more than happy not to talk about last night, but she couldn’t allow the investigation to be compromised.

“Yeah?” His attention remained fixed on the road in front of him. 

She twisted her mouth. “We should talk…” 

He didn’t reply.

“About the interview. Ian Parish,” she elaborated.

He released a long sigh and said, “What do I need to know?” 

“I don’t like him for this.” 

“Why would you? He was fifteen when the first victim was killed,” Mulder said as he braked for a red light. 

The turn signal pierced her eardrums. _Tick. Tick. Tick._ Like the time bomb she’d planted in their relationship.

“Not only that,” Scully went on. “I knew him. He didn’t strike me as someone who was capable of taking a human life. I understand you never know what a person is capable of, but he seemed to care almost too much, to the point where it was a liability as a surgeon.” 

“How’s that?” 

“I saw a patient die under his watch, and I saw how deeply it effected him. It’s hard to imagine someone like that purposefully taking a life. In fact, there was a rumor he was taking pills—opiates—and I wouldn’t be surprised if that was a coping mechanism for his guilt. Towards the end, he had a string of bad luck or careless mistakes, depending on who you ask.” 

Mulder asked, “What’s our angle?” 

He slowed as he turned into the neighborhood, which was populated with what appeared to be historical houses, each unique in color and design. Probably green and lush during the summer, the streets were lined with deciduous trees, a few dead leaves clinging to their branches. 

She gave him the next directions before answering, “Purely informational, I suppose. He worked at the hospital before I did, and he might have some insight. Though I have a feeling the sheriff wouldn’t like if we don’t treat him like a suspect.” 

“Fuck the sheriff,” he said flatly. 

She smiled to herself. “Fuck the sheriff,” she agreed.

As they continued to drive, the front yards became less well-tended, often littered with corroded debris. Backyards turned to overgrown fields that extended back to the redwoods. The hospital loomed large on the horizon. Parish’s house was the last on the street before the dead end.

Mulder gripped the steering wheel like he was wringing its neck. “Scully, I swear to god, if he makes another comment like that…” 

“You’ll let it go.” 

“Seriously?” his voice started to raise. “It doesn’t bother you?” 

“Of course it bothers me,” she replied, increasing her volume to match his. “How could it not?” 

“So what, you want me to just ignore it? Maybe laugh along like one of the boys next time?” 

“Christ, Mulder. You know I don’t want that.” She unclenched her hands and found eight red crescents imprinted on her palm. Just like the indentations she’d left on his back last night. 

He parked across the street from their destination: a compact mid-century house with white paint peeled to a grayish tint. A 1980s Nissan Sentra parked in the driveway, rust spots bright against the navy paint. The front yard looked like it hadn’t been tended for years, and green foxtails rippled in the breeze. 

Mulder turned to face her. 

“So what do you want, Scully?” 

Her instinct was to deflect, but she forced her chin high and pressed her lips together to prevent them from trembling. She’d never felt so vulnerable with him, and she hated the raw, scraped open feeling. 

“If you come to my rescue, it’s only going to make it worse.” She swallowed hard. “Especially now.” Now that they actually had something to hide. 

He ran his fingers through his hair, disturbing his careful coif. 

“And…” The words felt tacky in her throat. “I want us to be _us_ again.” 

She put her hand on his bicep. He looked down at his arm but didn’t move or speak. 

“Please,” she said. “We have a case to solve.” 

She waited for him to ask the impossible question—what does _us_ mean?—but he was silent. She let her hand drop. 

After a beat, he nodded brusquely. She wished she could take away the pain she registered in his eyes, but she didn’t know how. Some tension seemed to have unraveled between them, but it was replaced by a yawning distance. 

She followed him out of the car and through the stepping stones that marked a narrow path through the knee-high grasses. Nettles tugged at the hem of her pantsuit. 

Mulder rang the doorbell, and then knocked when no answering chime was heard from within the house. They waited in silence until the door opened. 

Far from the polished, youthful surgeon in Scully’s memory, she found Ian Parish rumpled and stubbled, his salt-and-pepper hair now consumed with gray. New lines etched into his forehead and spiderwebbed beneath his eyes, which were clear but ringed with dark circles. He wore a tan sweater that had started to unravel in one sleeve. When he recognized Scully, his face lit up. 

“Special Agents Fox Mulder and Dana Scully,” Mulder said before Parish could speak, indicating the two of them. 

“Dana!” Parish’s face split in a smile. “It’s been years. How are you?”

“Fine, thanks,” she said tersely. She was about to bring up why they were here when he continued. 

“I can’t believe you work for the FBI now,” he said, impressed. “And your hair is so short! You used to have a braid down to here.” He indicated his waist. 

“We’d like to ask you a few questions,” Mulder said. 

“Certainly.” Parish didn’t ask what it was about. 

He led them inside the dimly lit house that smelled faintly of rotting food. The yellow-brown wallpapered hallway was peppered with framed family photos, none of which looked like they’d been taken after the 1960s. 

When Parish wasn’t looking, Mulder pointed at his waist, mouthing, _Really?_ Scully rolled her eyes, savoring the semblance of normalcy between them. 

“Would you like something to drink?” Parish offered as they entered the living room. “Coffee? Tea?”

“Just water, thank you,” she replied. 

She and Mulder were told to take a seat on a stiff loveseat, and she perched on the edge, taking in her surroundings. Each piece of furniture sported a different floral pattern, and a cabinet in the corner showed off a collection of Hummel figurines and other knickknacks. The room was tidy, but grimy. The floorboards were fuzzy with dust and cobwebs clung to the corners of the low ceiling. A thin slat of light from the edges of the Venetian blinds illuminated the dust motes in the air. 

“Are we in Carrie’s mom’s house?” Mulder muttered under his breath, seeming transfixed by the grim, bloody crucifix that took center-stage above the mantle.

Scully stifled a snort as Parish returned with two tumblers of ice water. He set coasters down on a glass coffee table with an ornate wrought-iron base. She politely took a sip, though the glass had a noticeable fingerprint, and the lukewarm water had an oily film on the top.

“How long have you lived here?” Scully asked, despite knowing the answer. 

“My whole life,” he responded, seating himself in an overstuffed armchair near the fireplace. “The house belonged to my mother, and her mother before her.” 

She opened her mouth, but he answered her question before she had to ask. “My mother died ten years ago.” 

“I’m very sorry.” 

“Thank you, Dana.” He smiled sadly. 

She stiffened at the use of her first name, irritated that he continued to undermine her professional persona. “Agent Mulder and I understand you don’t practice medicine anymore,” she said. 

“Neither do you,” he pointed out. When she didn’t respond, he continued, “I work at the movie theater. Say, if you’re in town for a while, I can get you in for free. We’re showing _Boogie Nights_ and _I Know What You Did Last Summer_.” 

“Why did you quit?” she asked, anticipating the counter-question. 

“I wanted a job where people didn’t die on my watch,” he said simply. “I thought I could handle it but…well, when the hospital closed, it felt like time to move on.” 

Scully and Mulder held their silence until Parish felt compelled to continue. After a moment, it worked. 

“Look, Dana. I’m sure you heard the rumors about me. Most of them were true. I went to my first NA meeting the day I decided to quit medicine.” He pulled a chip from his front pocket imprinted with a number seven and flashed it in her direction. 

“I’m glad to hear that,” she said. 

“One of the tenets of NA is to take responsibility for your mistakes,” he continued as he absently spun the chip in his fingers. “And I want to do that. But those things that happened…” He tightened his fist around the chip and stared at the carpet. “That surgery you assisted with. I went over every move I made more times than I could count. I didn’t make a single mistake.” 

“What do you think happened?” 

“I’ll be asking myself that question for the rest of my life.” He stared directly at her, the manic edge in his expression reminiscent of Mulder. “That place wasn’t right. You know it wasn’t.” 

Scully pursed her lips and looked down at her notes. She knew if she closed her eyes she would see that swirl of blood. 

“What do you think is wrong with Silverwood General, sir?” Mulder leaned forward with his elbows on his knees. He was trying his best to form a connection with Parish, but the former doctor wouldn’t take his eyes from Scully. 

“I’ve spent years trying to work it out.” Parish perked up, visibly interested in Mulder for the first time. “Even before I left. Three patients bled out on me like that, Dana. Three. After proper cauterization application after the tumor removal. There was never any source of the blood. You remember that, don’t you?” 

Using all her self-control, she managed to keep her expression blank. “Hemorrhage is always a risk of surgery,” she stated flatly. 

“You think the accidents are a product of the hospital itself?” Mulder asked.

“I think that place is evil.” He made the sign of the cross on his chest as subtly as possible.

“Evil how?” Mulder pressed.

“There’s a demon in there,” he told them with an increased sense of urgency, his eyes wide and pleading. 

“Can you elaborate on that?” Scully asked dryly. 

Parish frowned and pulled a crucifix from beneath his shirt. He held it out. “I was an atheist when I started working at that…place. There’s something in there that makes everything go wrong. I don’t know if it’s a person, or a thing, or what. I’ve looked for years but—”

Scully interrupted, “You’ve been inside the hospital since it shut down?”

“No,” he answered quickly. “Never.”

“So you wouldn’t have been at the hospital on May 23, this year?” 

“No.”

“Where were you that night?” she persisted.

“Probably at home, here. And no, I don’t have anyone to substantiate it.” 

Scully and Mulder remained silent again.

“Look, you couldn’t pay me to step foot back in that place. But I…” He paused in apparent consideration. “I might be able to help you.” 

They shared a subtle glance. 

“Follow me,” Parish said.

He led them down the narrow hallway. All the doors were shut, denying the agents the opportunity to peek at the rest of his home. He opened the final door and pulled the cord on a dangling bare bulb. 

A small bedroom had been converted to an office or madman’s lair, depending on one’s perspective. As a matter of fact, it resembled Mulder’s workspaces in the middle of taxing cases. Two cork boards filled one of the walls: one featuring historical news articles and photos of the hospital, the other filled with clippings of local disappearances from the Pasteur Sun. Files were stacked high on the desk next to archive and history books, and legal pads with pages wavy from handwriting. 

“I’ve been studying the place,” the former doctor told them. 

“I can see that,” Scully remarked. 

“Looks like you’ve been doing our job,” Mulder said, sounding more impressed than anything.

“I always found the history of the hospital morbidly fascinating. I always wondered what it would take to make a doctor, someone who vowed to do no harm…turn like that. I’m sure you understand,” he directed to Scully. “You know, there are some who believe he was infected long before the experiments were discovered.” 

“There have never been any known incidents of a rabies case being so mild an infected individual could carry on normal activities, much less keep their job as a doctor,” Scully countered.

The former doctor shrugged. “There’s a lot we don’t know about the virus. It’s always possible people have been contracting mild forms of the rabies virus for as long as it has existed, and we’ve never recorded any incidents because there was no clinical need.” 

She conceded the point.

“You’re not just researching the rabies experiments, though.” She pointed at the cork board with the missing persons. 

Parish picked at the loose thread in his sweater. “I assumed all the disappearances were accidents. I used to think of a demonic presence in the hospital more metaphorically. Now…” He trailed off. 

“What do you think it is?” Mulder prompted. 

“I don’t know what to think any more.” 

“I’m sure you know all about the local legends…” 

“Of course,” Parish said. “Everyone does.” 

Mulder waited for him to continue, tipping his head to prompt him. 

“You want to know if I think there’s anything to them?” 

Mulder nodded. 

Parish laughed. “No, I think those are just legends. That place attracts evil.” He stopped, eyeing Mulder. “You don’t think there’s anything to them, do you?” 

Mulder shrugged. “We’re exploring all lines of investigation.” 

“Well, you can take what you need from my research. Take everything, if you think it might be helpful. Hell, search this whole house if it will help you eliminate me as a suspect.”

“We appreciate your cooperation,” Scully said. “We’ll have someone come by with some boxes and return all this to you when the case is over.”

“I’m hoping when you’re done with this case, I won’t want any of this back,” Parish declared.

Scully ducked out into the hallway to call the station to ask for a few office boxes, a van, and an officer to assist with the search.

As they waited, she and Mulder pored through Parish’s research. She recognized all the names of the missing persons from the materials they’d dug up, but the history… he'd dug deep. He’d found newspaper articles from the early 1900s up through the second run of the hospital and managed to get blueprints for the hospital from when it was first built and when it reopened. 

A sharp rap at the door startled her from her search. Scully excused herself to go answer it, Parish trailing behind her. Mulder was nose-deep in an annotated book about California history at the turn of the century. 

At the door, Scully found Headley, a beat cop on the task force she’d only exchanged a few words with. Behind him, Sheriff Fisher stood with his thumbs hooked in his belt loops and a broad grin on his face. She groaned inwardly and took the boxes. 

“No,” Parish said behind her with a startling amount of force. “I withdraw my consent to search the house.” He turned to Scully. “Dana, you and your partner may take what you need from my office, but I can’t let this man in my house.” 

“Why the change of heart, buddy?” The sheriff seemed nonplussed at the turn of events. 

Scully’s eyes darted between them. She gathered the doctor didn’t have any particular relationship with the sheriff, but the sheriff’s reputation preceded him. She wondered who exactly she was working with.

“That’s fine,” the sheriff said. “We’ll just come back with a warrant. The judge likes me. I might even get one today.” 

Parish held his ground. “You do that.” 

“Say, I came all this way,” the sheriff continued. “And my coffee just went right through me today. Can I use the little boy’s room?” 

Parish narrowed his eyes. 

“Help a guy out. You wouldn’t want me to embarrass myself in front of my men and the FBI, would you? I’m dying here.” He squeezed his thighs together in a comical display. 

“Second door on the left,” Parish said tersely. “Then you’re out.” 

“You’re a lifesaver.” Fisher tipped his head in a salute and entered the house, a vampire invited in. 

Fisher quickly strode past the second door to see the office, where Mulder was flipping through legal pads, his glasses perched perilously at the tip of his nose. The sheriff let out a low whistle as he took in the room. 

“I said ‘second door to the left,’” Parish said, a slight waver in his voice.

“Sorry about that, buddy,” Fisher apologized. “You got quite a collection here.” 

“I’ve been studying the hospital,” he said through gritted teeth. “Last I checked, that’s not a crime.” 

“No, but murder is,” the sheriff replied. “You wouldn’t happen to know anything about those bodies we found, would you?” 

Parish put his hands on his hips. “You can ask me anything you want at the station.”

The sheriff lifted his hands in surrender. “I’ll be out of your hair in a minute. Then we can continue this chat where it’s less comfortable.” He bared his teeth, his smile not meeting his eyes, and disappeared into the bathroom. Uneasy, Scully stood outside the door. She felt vaguely like she was violating the sheriff’s privacy, but she needed to ensure he was doing what he said he was, not rifling around the former surgeon's medicine cabinet. She heard the sound of urine hitting the toilet bowl, the sound of the faucet running for a while, and when the door started to open, she hopped back to the office. 

Sheriff Fisher smoothed his hands on his uniform pants, darkening the tan fabric with wet streaks. 

“I’ll see you all later,” he said pointedly, looking directly at Parish as he spoke. “Why don’t you come by for a chat tonight? Let’s say, 8 PM.” 

“My shift starts at four,” Parish hedged.

“I’m sure the boss will understand helping a murder investigation is more important. Sayonara.” 


	13. Chapter 13

Sheriff’s Station

Scully grimaced as she sipped the station coffee. Behind her, Mulder paced the observation room, only sometimes stopping to watch the television screens. The circuitous interview had been in progress for almost an hour, and her partner looked like he was about to jump in at any moment. 

To Scully’s chagrin, Dr. Parish’s first words when he got to the station were not “I want a lawyer.” If it weren’t a cardinal faux pas in law enforcement, she would have pulled him aside and insisted. 

“Look, man.” Parish’s voice was tinny through the speakers. “I don’t know what you want me to tell you. I wasn’t there. I haven’t stepped foot in that godforsaken place since August 5th, 1989.” 

“That’s very specific,” Sheriff Fisher goaded.

“That was the day the hospital closed. It was a memorable day and also public record.” The former surgeon’s hands were tight fists on the table, and his rounded shoulders were now perfectly straight. 

Everyone winced as the sheriff scraped his chair on the floor as he pushed it back. He stood and glanced up at the cameras with a hint of a smirk. 

“So you’re saying you’ve never even driven past it again? Never spent a weekend out at the old campground?” The sheriff paced the room, making a show of pondering. Mulder stopped his own pacing and crossed his arms at the screen, as though he wanted to avoid mirroring the movements of the other man. 

Fisher stopped, putting his hands on the back of his chair and leaning toward the suspect. A poker-faced Deputy Ward tapped the back of his pen on his notebook. He remained silent, letting the sheriff lead. 

“Let’s talk about your former profession, shall we?” 

“What do you want to know?”

“I’d like to start at the beginning. Why did you choose to become a brain surgeon?” Fisher leaned against the wall, picking at a fingernail like he was only half-listening. 

“Why did you choose to become a cop?” Parish countered.

“For the pleasure of conversations like this,” Sheriff Fisher replied smoothly. 

Parish’s breath crackled on the speakers as he sighed. “Like most of us,” he replied evenly. “I decided during my residency. I didn’t grow up thinking I wanted to be a brain surgeon, if that’s what you’re getting at.” 

“Did you grow up wanting to be a doctor?” 

“No. I didn’t even plan on going to college at first. Do you really need to know all of this?” 

The sheriff grinned. “Pretend it’s our first date.” 

Scully thought she saw a slight eye roll from the former doctor. 

“It’s kind of a long story.” 

“We’ve got time. Don’t we, Ward?” 

The deputy nodded dutifully. 

Parish started, “I was backpacking with a friend across America, figuring out what I wanted to do with my life. We were out in the Wyoming mountains far away from any kind of medical assistance. He fell, cut his leg up really bad. It was bleeding copiously, and he was having trouble walking on it. We had no idea what we were doing, but it appeared he needed stitches. He asked that I do it. 

“There wasn’t much time, so I just acted on instinct. My stitches were sloppy, and the wound got infected before we got help, of course. But he made it. When we finally got help, the doctor told me that I’d saved his life, said something about me being a natural doctor. It was just an off-hand comment, but it stuck with me.” 

“So you were born for the job,” Fisher said with understated condescension. “Nice story. You went to med school after that?” 

“Yes, I started exploring my options after that.” 

“What attracted you to brain surgery?” 

Scully felt Mulder’s presence behind her and twisted her neck to look back at him. He stood rigid with a hand on the back of her chair, glowering at the screen. 

“When it comes to practicing medicine and surgery, there is no area with higher highs and lower lowers. I was in it for the highs.” 

“Funny you should mention the highs,” the sheriff said. “Did surgery itself end up not giving you enough of a buzz?” 

Parish didn’t respond. Through the distortions of the black and white image, he appeared impassive. 

“Now, don’t make me spell it out for you,” Fisher said. 

When Parish still didn’t respond, the sheriff turned to his deputy. “Ward, would you be so kind as to get us some fresh coffee?” To Parish, he said, “You want anything to eat? Looks like we’re going to be here for a while.” 

“I’m fine, thanks,” Parish said. “And I’d like to go home.” 

The sheriff ignored the comment. As the deputy left the interrogation room, Mulder slipped through the door before it shut. 

Scully braced herself for an outburst, but Mulder’s tone was conciliatory. “Why don’t we take this over?” he offered. “You’ve been at it for a while.” Hands on his hips and drawn to his full height, his body language contradicted his pleasant tone. 

“I’m good,” Fisher said. “But thanks for checking. Shut the door on your way out.” He winked at Mulder, who bristled through his compliance. 

“Now where were we?” the sheriff continued, his voice again carrying through the speakers. “Oh yes, we were talking about the highs of brain surgery. Tell me about that.” 

“I’m sure you can imagine,” the former surgeon said. “Every surgery is high-stakes, and the consequences are dire if anything goes wrong.” 

“When it went right, it must have made you feel like a god,” the sheriff offered. “At least, I’d imagine.” 

“I guess.” 

“It must have been a rush…the urgency, the power of life and death in your hands. Touching someone’s  _ mind _ . Do you ever miss it?” 

“Sometimes.”

“I’ll bet you do. I’ll bet you think about it all the time when you’re collecting tickets at the movie theater. I bet sometimes you can’t believe you let it get away from you. If I were you, I would never stop thinking about it. I might do anything to feel that power again.” 

“Christ,” Scully muttered. 

“He’s really pouring it on,” Mulder agreed tersely. 

“Sometimes I miss it,” Parish said simply. “Sometimes I’m relieved I don’t have that responsibility anymore.” 

“There were other perks to the job too, I’m sure. Why don’t you tell me about that?” 

“What do you mean?” 

“The golden boy reputation—though I understand that didn’t last forever. The women. The money. That’s a lot for you to give up.” 

“I don’t need all that. I enjoy a simple life.” 

The sheriff leaned back in his chair and regarded the man. “So that’s why you chose to quit? You wanted a simple life?” 

“Something like that.” 

“Interesting,” the sheriff went on. “That’s not what I heard.” 

“What did you hear?” Parish started to sound more nervous.

Scully startled as Ward came in behind them balancing three cups of coffee. He nodded at Mulder and Scully, and sat the coffees down on the table, looking at the screens. Probably for a cue it was his time to return.

“Does the name Aaron Mercer mean anything to you?” 

“Yes.” 

“What about Walter Selby?” 

Scully’s chest tightened. 

“Yes,” Parish said hoarsely.

“And Justine Valencia?”

“Yes.” 

The shadow of Parish’s Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. 

“What do they all have in common?” 

“They were patients I operated on. They didn’t make it.” 

“Why didn’t they make it?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Oh, come on. I’m not the medical boards. You don’t have to give that line to me. I don’t have to tell you that the statute of limitations in California for medical malpractice is three years.” 

“I don’t know what happened. I wish I knew.” 

The sheriff pulled out three sheets of paper from the bottom of his stack of pages and set them on the table between them. 

“Aaron Mercer, Walter Selby, Justine Valencia. Three people who were alive when they entered an operating room with you and ended up in the morgue. All three bled out when you were performing brain surgery.” 

Parish pinched the bridge of his nose and took his time before responding. “I couldn’t tell you what happened. The surgeries went exactly according to plan, and then the patients began to hemorrhage. I’ve gone over the steps more times than I can count, and I still can’t figure out what went wrong. It’s a risk of surgery—in the release they sign.” 

“Is it also in the release that their surgeon might not be sober when they are operating on them?” The sheriff’s smug expression carried clearly through the low-resolution image.

The former doctor buried his face in his hands. Finally, he lowered his hands, looking up at the sheriff. “I was careful. I didn’t take enough to be impaired.” 

“I gotta say, if I were your patient, that wouldn’t be very much comfort. ‘My surgeon’s only a little high.’ It’s one thing for a shopgirl to pop a couple Vicodin, but a brain surgeon?” The sheriff shuddered. 

“I’m not proud of my actions,” Parish admitted. “I’ve been in NA for the last seven years, and I haven’t touched the stuff since. I hurt my back a couple of years ago, and my doctor wanted to prescribe me Oxytocin, but I only took Tylenol. You can check that yourself.” 

“When did you start taking drugs?” 

“It started after the first death. After Aaron Mercer. You can’t blame the drugs for that. I don’t think you can blame anyone for that. After that, my hands started shaking. I couldn’t sleep. One night, I… I took one of my mother’s Percocets. It wasn’t as bad as it sounds; I knew I could prescribe her more. That night, for the first time in weeks, I could sleep. I found my hands stopped shaking when I took them. At the time, it seemed like the only way I could practice surgery at all. I didn’t feel high. I felt normal.” 

“Do you still believe that?” Fisher’s voice was quiet, sympathetic. 

“I don’t know.” 

“You’ve been in Twelve Steps for years now. That’s a long time to not take responsibility for your actions.” 

“I take responsibility for everything I can explain,” Parish retorted. 

“You didn’t choose to quit surgery, did you?” Fisher’s voice was quiet. He leaned across the table on his elbows, a contradiction of pleasant and predatory.

“I did. After the hospital closed, I decided I was done.” 

“But you had already started to apply at other hospitals, and they rejected you, didn’t they?” 

“I applied to a few, yes.” 

Scully and Mulder shared a glance. 

“Sounds like our friend may have been less than forthcoming,” Mulder mumbled. 

The sheriff said, “That didn’t weigh into your decision-making? The fact that you were seeing that no one else wanted a surgeon with a reputation as a drug addicted playboy, who had blood on his hands from three patient deaths?” 

“Like I said, every surgeon will experience some death. It’s part of the job.” 

“Tell me more about that.” 

“Sometimes patients die unpreventable deaths. And sometimes a surgeon will make a mistake, despite his or her best efforts and abilities. We all know that going in. I’m sure you’ve made mistakes at your job.” 

She could see the sheriff’s face darken. “I’ve never killed anyone by accident,” he said icily. 

“And I don’t know what any of this has to do with the case you’re solving. You’re wasting your time. I just hope  _ you _ won’t have blood on your hands from going after the wrong guy.” 

The sheriff looked up at the camera, his hand passing over his chin. On cue, Ward balanced the cups with difficulty and entered the interrogation room. Ingrained politeness compelled Scully to open the door for him. 

“Thank you kindly,” Fisher said to the deputy, sipping from his cup. “Delicious as always,” he added drolly. “The former doctor here was just telling us about his career change. He tells us that not being able to get another position as a surgeon after Silverwood closed didn’t have any bearing on his decision-making.” 

“That seems unlikely,” Ward chipped in dutifully. 

“That’s what I thought,” Fisher agreed. 

“I’m not sure how much more of this I can take,” Mulder said through gritted teeth. 

Scully agreed, but she said nothing.

“You want to know what I think?” Fisher asked. 

Parish waited for the sheriff to continue. 

“I think you were humiliated when you didn’t get a call back from those hospitals. Eight years of med school, right? When you start out, you’re the star surgeon at your hospital. You’re making the big bucks, and you have a rotation of nurses and residents who are delighted to suck your dick.” 

The sheriff’s eyes flicked up to the cameras. Ice sluiced down Scully’s back. 

He continued, “By the end, you’re a pariah. An addict. No other hospital wants to take on the liability of giving you a chance. You lost your huge salary and your supply of easy pussy.” 

Again, he glanced up at the camera, giving the impression he looked directly at Scully. Her pulse beat at her temples like trapped birds.

Fisher said, “It must have been a relief when the hospital closed because you didn’t have to experience the humiliation of being forced to resign.” 

Parish remained silent, unmoving. 

“Look, you can talk to us, right, Ward?” 

“That’s right,” the deputy agreed. 

The sheriff continued, “We can imagine what it was like for you. How angry you were, how frustrating it was that no one else would believe you that all those deaths weren’t your fault.” 

“I was never formally reprimanded for those surgeries,” he said. “They couldn’t find any evidence of wrongdoing.” 

“Interesting you should mention that,” Fisher said. “Ward, tell us what you found.” 

The deputy said, “Justine Valencia’s brain was examined in a post-mortem autopsy, but Aaron Mercer and Walter Selby’s brains went missing before the examinations could be performed.” 

“That’s right,” the sheriff jumped back in. “Curious, isn’t it? The only evidence that could definitively point to wrongdoing on your end just happens to disappear from the hospital.” 

“I didn’t have anything to do with that.” 

“But you would agree it was convenient, would you not?” 

“No!” Parish started to lose his composure. “The autopsy wouldn’t have revealed anything, anyway.” 

“But you can agree it doesn’t look great for you, yeah? Now mind you, we’re not jumping to any conclusions—”

Mulder snorted.

“But why would anyone else take those brains? You’re the only person it would benefit for them to go missing. Now, we’re going to tell you something you need to keep to yourself. Can you do that for us?” 

“Okay…” 

“All those bodies we found, they were missing their brains too.”

“Motherfucker,” Mulder spat. 

Fisher continued, “I can’t imagine why the killer took them. Maybe to experiment on them, maybe to keep a collection. Hell, maybe both. Now, try to look at this from our perspective. You can see how that looks bad, can’t you?” 

“If you’re investigating a medical malpractice case, yes,” Parish said tersely. 

The sheriff sat back down, leaned in and spoke in an intimate tone, “Now, look, I’m not saying this to be mean, but this is what I see. I see a guy who used to have it all: a meaningful, highly respected job, all the women he could want—within reason; this is Azalea after all—a higher salary than Ward and I will ever see in our lifetimes. I see a guy who lost it all, but never accepted that it was his fault. Who works a job intended for stoned teenagers and whose social circle consists of his NA meetings and the clerk at the grocery store.

“Now, like I said, I’m not saying this to be mean. God knows I’ve had some slumps in my life. Times when nothing went my way and I would do anything to get back to where I was. I know how that feels, believe me. 

“But this guy, see, we know he can’t let go of the past—he practically has a shrine to the place where he lost everything. He sees that building every time he steps outside his house. He’s obsessed with it. One day, he returns to it. And he keeps returning to it.” 

“I never—” 

“I know what you told us. Let me finish. One day, he’s up there, and he finds someone. Someone no one else would find.” The sheriff slapped his hands on the table so loud that Parish and Scully both jumped. 

“He opens their skulls to remember what it feels like to have that power again, to bring him back to the time when he felt like he was truly alive. And it was such a rush that he goes back. Maybe to reminisce, maybe to wait for another opportunity. We’re exploring that whole building with a fine-tooth comb. Let’s just hope we don’t find any evidence you were there.” 

“That’s enough,” Mulder said. 

“Mulder—” Scully started, but he was already through the door to the interview room. 

Rather than exploding, Mulder turned calmly to Parish and said, “I think we have what we need here.” 

Parish looked gratefully to Mulder. “I would like to go home now.” 

The sheriff stood to his full high, puffing his chest in an apparent attempt to make up for the couple inches he stood shorter than Mulder. 

“We were just getting started.” 

“Am I being charged with anything?” Parish inquired.

“You’re being held under suspicion of murder,” Fisher told him. 

“A 48-hour hold,” Scully corrected. “After which point you will be charged or released.” 

“That’s right,” the sheriff said tersely. To Parish: “We’ll pick up where we left off tomorrow. Ward, would you kindly escort this man to his cell? And Ward?” 

“Sir?” 

“Tomorrow, we’re going to keep searching that hospital, high and low. No rock left unturned. Understand?” 

“Yes, Sir.” 

Scully thought about how her DNA might still be lingering in the building seven years later: a stray waist-length strand of hair floating down the halls like a tumbleweed, her blood from the time she cut her hand on a can opener glowing under the blacklight. 

As Ward escorted Parish out of the room, the sheriff closed the door behind him, like Scully and Mulder were next to be interrogated.

Fisher said in a low, poisonous voice, “You want to tell me what the hell you were doing?” 

“I could ask you the same question,” Mulder said, matching the sheriff’s coldness. 

“I was trying to get a confession from our best suspect. Chasing the best lead we’ve got.” The sheriff leaned over the desk with menace. “Meanwhile, you two spend an afternoon moving a crazy man’s research to your hotel. Sounds like you want to pick up where he left off.” 

Scully said, “We are pursuing every line of investigation available to us. It’s possible our killer is using the persona of the so-called Mad Doctor in his arrangement of the bodies, or was influenced by these crimes.” 

“How exactly is he our best suspect?” Mulder challenged. “You know very well he would have been 15 when the murders started. We have no evidence of an accomplice. That doesn’t exactly fit your story about a man who begins killing after his career implodes.” 

“We’re still working through the details,” the sheriff said. “Just because we haven’t found evidence of an accomplice doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. You said it yourself that was a possibility. Or maybe he started early, and that was one of the reasons he wanted to become a surgeon. Whatever the story is, we’ll figure it out.” 

“Yeah, I bet you will,” Mulder sneered.

“Just what are you implying?” 

“You know exactly what he’s saying.” 

Scully tipped up her chin and stared directly at the sheriff. He swung his attention to her. She kept her spine straight and her gaze level. 

He waited a beat before saying, “So. Agent Scully. Are you going to keep pretending you didn’t work at this hospital? You didn’t live in this town?” 

She couldn’t tell if the ringing of her ears was a white noise whine from the flickering fluorescent lights or if it was just in her head. Shame enveloped her in its familiar blanket. 

“It’s not relevant to the case,” she stated. 

“I’m not so sure about that,” Fisher continued, disdainful. “It could help explain why you’re so willing to protect that man. I’d like to know just what kind of relationship you have—or had—with the suspect.” 

“I’m sure you aren’t accusing me of conspiring with a suspect.” 

“Hell, I don’t know what’s going on with you two. All I know is that I asked for Bureau assistance, and instead I’m getting complaints about an FBI agent skulking around a campground at night, scaring campers and asking about urban legends, and the other agent has an entire history at the murder site that just somehow never comes up.” 

Scully said quietly, “And we see a small-town”—she refrained from adding  _ piece of shit _ —“sheriff so desperate to solve his only major case that he assigns guilt to the first person he doesn’t who comes into his eyeshot, without any evidence.” 

Just as he had when she first met him at the crime scene, he looked her up and down. While the first time had been leering and appraising, now his expression was pure contempt. Scully was certain he could read the same on her face. 

His face transformed into a mask of pleasantness. 

“You said it yourself, agent. We have 48 hours to change that.” 

He nodded to Scully and Mulder in turn and swept out of the room, the door whooshing shut behind him. 


	14. Chapter 14

Evergreen Motel

As claustrophobic investigatory clutter made Mulder feel at home, his room was the obvious choice as home base for their parallel investigation. Boxes from Ian Parish’s office now lined the walls, and the small desk was covered in legal pads and books. Mulder had removed the paintings from the walls and attempted to mount the cork boards in their stead, but Scully insisted he remove the one he placed above the bed, certain it would fall on him in the middle of the night. That cork board now balanced against the wall on a few boxes while the other hung perilously on a wall hook. A highly suspect gas station sandwich sat at the corner of the desk, and the sweet smell of lunch meat left Scully vaguely nauseated. Her stomach was so knotted she’d only managed to eat a bite, while a furious Mulder had devoured his own single-handedly while driving. 

Scully sat at the desk and pulled her jacket closer around her. A chill had set in her bones that wouldn’t go away even though she was certain the room was a normal temperature. In contrast, Mulder had stripped down to his undershirt. He lay on the tiny loveseat with his knees draped over the arm and flipped through Parish’s notes. Occasionally, he set the legal pad on his chest, took off his glasses and stared at the ceiling, his mind palpably churning. He reached for sunflower seeds on autopilot. 

An image from a clipped news article caught Scully’s eye from the cork board to her side. “Doctor Blames Bats for Local Rabies Outbreak” read the Pasteur Sun headline. She studied the doughy-faced doctor with the smug smile, the light reflecting from his high forehead but not his beady eyes. He wore a traditional white doctor’s coat over a knit sweater-vest, a bow tie at the center of his collar. The picture of propriety and tradition. 

The mountain of evidence was overwhelming in its volume. She considered if her efforts would be best spent helping Mulder with the notes, reading through the annotations in the books or studying the history of the hospital. Detective work at this stage reminded her of finals in med school, a dozen high priorities vying for her scant time. 

She opted to look at the blueprints of the hospital. There were answers in the hospital, she knew. Parish seemed to understand that, too. 

Mulder remained fully absorbed in his reading as she lowered herself to her knees on the sticky carpet and unrolled the blueprints for a side-by-side comparison. 

The top floor appeared identical between both blueprints: the neurology ward, the operating theater, the mental health ward, the patient beds all exactly as she remembered. 

She flipped to the pages containing the first floor to find they were covered in Parish’s messy doctor scrawl. He’d even gone so far as to sketch the positions of the beds, furniture and equipment. The blueprint from the 80s was covered in ink sketches while the one from the 40s was sketched in pencil, scarred with impressions from erased lines. 

“Get this, Scully,” Mulder said, twisting to his side and peering at her through his glasses. “Parish seemed to believe that Thornton made a significant scientific discovery in his experiments. There’s an account from a nurse that she started noticing symptoms a few months after the outbreak began. Parish’s theory is that there was an accident when he was infecting someone and the needle was turned on him. But he could delay the infection based on this new treatment he developed. Scully, did you hear me?” 

Scully made an affirmative noise. “Mulder, come here.” 

Mulder set down his notes and crouched down beside her.

“Look, we have the pharmacy and the ICU in the same place, same with the cafeteria,” Scully said. “But going through the original blueprint, I can’t seem to find a supply room. There are supply closets on every floor, but they’re the size of janitor closets, not nearly large enough to support a hospital of this size.” 

She got up to retrieve a red sharpie from her briefcase and began to outline each room that appeared different. “Most notably,” she told him. “I can’t find a morgue. See? It was a six-patient room here.” 

“Some hospitals don’t have morgues,” he countered.

“Certainly, but it’s not common, especially for a hospital of this size. And they would still need a smaller room to hold the bodies before they’d be transported to a local funeral home. I can’t find a room that would serve that purpose.” 

“Hold on,” Mulder said. She watched as he bounded across the room and tore a newspaper article from a cork board. When his back was turned to her, she indulged herself by letting her eyes wander over his body: the way his slacks clung to his hips, his trapezius muscles shifting under his white t-shirt. Despite everything, desire stirred in her belly. 

“Here!” He turned back to her, jabbing a finger at the article. “1918 influenza pandemic. ‘Hospital workers report an overflow of bodies at the morgue. They have enlisted the help of a local funeral home, but even that is expected to soon reach capacity.’” 

“It seems Parish has been wondering the same things,” Scully murmured as she flipped to the last pages.  _ Morgue? _ had been scribbled in the margin of both. 

Mulder raised his eyebrows. “We always knew there was more to this hospital than meets the eye.” 

* * *

Nov. 10, 1997

Scully woke to a faint tickle on her cheek. Blearily, she opened her eyes and Mulder came into focus. Staring down at her, he retracted his hand from behind her ear, where he likely tucked a strand of hair—his go-to method for waking her when an urgent shaking wasn’t required. She covered her mouth as she yawned, trying not to treat him to the rank morning breath she smelled on herself. Had she even brushed her teeth last night? She didn’t remember getting ready for bed, much less falling asleep. Last she remembered, they were sitting on the floor leaning against the bed, comparing notes and trading theories. Her skirt twisted uncomfortably around her legs, and her bra’s underwire cut into her ribs. 

She squinted at her surroundings to confirm that she was still in Mulder’s room. The room was just as chaotic as they’d left it last night. The blueprints were still unrolled across the carpet, and the television played the local news on mute. 

“8:53!” she exclaimed as she saw the time, her voice going an octave higher against her will. “Why did you let me sleep in so late?” 

He shrugged. “You looked like you needed it.” 

“I’m certain your mother warned you against telling a woman she looks tired,” she said drolly.

“You look beautiful,” he told her with a soft smile she saw mostly in his eyes. 

“Don’t tease,” she objected as she finger-combed her mussed hair. 

“I’m not.” 

She looked away from him, trying to control her involuntary smile, and swept a hand across his side of the bed. It was cold. 

“Mulder, did you sleep at all?” 

“I think I caught a few on the couch.”

She opened her mouth to admonish him, but he continued speaking.“Look, you might want to start getting ready. The deputy called a few minutes ago. Said they found some evidence at the hospital.” 

“What time are they expecting us?” Scully began to calculate the timing of her morning routine as she swung her legs out of bed. 

“Officer Calhoun”—Mulder wrinkled his nose as he spoke his name—“is coming by to pick you up in twenty.” 

Her stomach churned as she remembered how Calhoun had smirked at her at the sheriff’s station. However, he was the least of her problems at the time. “Twenty!” she exclaimed. “That’s not enough—never mind. What evidence?” 

“Apparently, they found a bloody tissue under a mattress in one of the operating rooms.” 

She frowned. “We searched under all the mattresses.” 

“I know,” Mulder said gravely. “That’s why I told them not to disturb the scene any further until you get there. Apparently, they’ve been there since seven AM. Searching top to bottom, just like they promised Parish.” 

“I don’t like this at all.” 

“Neither do I,” he agreed. 

“What are you going to be doing?” 

“Following up on some new leads,” he replied with a shrug. 

“What leads?” 

“If the sheriff asks, I’m helping run background on Parish.” 

She raised an eyebrow. “And if I ask?” 

“People who might have some information about the experiments,” he told her. “I need to go make myself presentable.” 

“Yeah,” she huffed. “Me too.” 

Mulder disappeared into the bathroom with a promise to call her in several hours. Hopping over the obstacles on the floor, she strode to the mirror to assess her appearance. Not great but salvageable, she concluded, and licked a finger to clear mascara crumbs from under her eyes. The concealer had almost completely rubbed off the mark on her neck, but at least her hair could be fixed with a spritz of water and a few minutes with a round brush. 

As Mulder ran the shower, she started to gather all the personal items she found in his room. As she tossed the uneaten sandwich in the trash, a familiar face caught her attention from the television: the sheriff in uniform, flanked by Deputy Ward and several people in suits Scully didn’t recognize, a small crowd of journalists in front of him with cameras and notebooks outs. 

She pressed the volume-up button on the television, and the sheriff’s voice slowly began to fill the room. “That’s a great question,” he said. “We’re pursuing a couple of lines of investigation with the assistance of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but we have a suspect being held at this moment—”

“Mulder!” Scully yelled.

“Huh?” he called back.

She sighed. A plume of fragranced steam greeted her as she reluctantly opened the bathroom door. 

“You tryna join me? It’s a tight fit, but I think we could make it work,” he teased through the shower curtain. 

“The sheriff is having a press conference right now,” she said. 

He pulled back the shower curtain just enough to poke his head out. “You’re kidding.” 

“I wish I were.” 

He tore the curtain open, and she turned her back, only having caught a glimpse of his nude form. 

She said, “It’s on the local news right now. He’s telling everyone we have a suspect in custody.” 

“That son of a bitch.” 

Scully stepped aside as Mulder stormed out of the bathroom to the television. Slightly dazed, she grabbed a towel and followed him. 

“I can’t disclose that at this time,” the sheriff was saying. “But yes, this appears to be the case of a serial killer. I want to tell the citizens of Azalea and Pasteur County that they don’t have to worry. We have good reason to believe this killer will not strike again.” 

“This fucking guy… I swear, the next time I see him…” Mulder threatened in a low voice.

Keeping her eyes fixed on the television and studiously avoiding looking at the dripping, naked man next to her, she held the towel out at arm’s length. 

“Oh, thanks,” Mulder said absently. Rather than covering up, he began to dry himself. 

“No, we haven’t formally charged anyone at this time,” the sheriff said on the television. “We should have more information for you within the next 24 hours. This is all we can say at this time. Thank you very much.” He kept a hand raised as he walked away from the crowd in a flood of flashes and questions. 

Scully was impressed that he’d managed such a large impromptu press conference in Azalea—until she realized that meant they’d probably had early warning. Maybe as early as last night, after the interrogation. Nothing like the promise of a serial killer to lure the vultures from the Bay Area.

A knock on the neighboring room—Scully’s room—startled her out of her revery. 

“Shit,” she swore under her breath. “He’s early.  _ Shit _ .” 

He wasn’t, she quickly realized, but the press conference had eaten up what little time she had left. 

She walked to the window with the reluctance of someone walking to her execution and pulled down the Venetian blinds to confirm Officer Calhoun was rocking on his heels outside her room. 

“Go,” she hissed at Mulder, gesturing frantically in the bathroom. 

She pulled her suit jacket on and smoothed down her suit before opening the door. 

“Agent Scully,” Calhoun said, walking toward her. “I thought you were—” 

He was cut off by the sound of a crash coming from the bathroom, and his eyebrows raised. 

“Excuse me,” Scully muttered, slipping past the officer. “I need to get something from the other room. I won’t be a minute.” 

Humiliation burned her cheeks as she slunk into her room, feeling like a guilty teenager caught making out by her father. Knowing she was a grown woman and that none of this was anyone’s business hardly made her feel better. She let out a long exhale as she shut the door behind her. 

She tore through her closet until she found a black skirt suit that most closely resembled what he’d already seen her wearing, hoping the cop’s detective skills were as subpar as she’d grown to assume. As she dabbed a fresh layer of concealer on her neck, she wondered how many walks of shame she’d be forced to endure before the case was up. 


	15. Chapter 15

Silverwood General Hospital

Apr. 12, 1989

“Surprise!” Dana exclaimed—but not too loudly; she was in a morgue, after all. She lifted her hands, posing in the doorframe. She dropped her arms as she saw Amy. 

Amy knelt in front of a cabinet, beakers and jars spread out around her. She looked up at Dana, wild-eyed, and dropped a dish on the ground with a loud clatter. It clattered against the tile. Dana’s good spirits were immediately replaced by concern and confusion. 

“What’s the surprise?” Amy asked warily. “I’m not sure I can take another one today.” 

“Um. I’m here to assist with the autopsy of Walter Selby’s brain.” Dana carefully maneuvered around the glass items on the ground, trying to avoid making yet another mess. 

Amy laughed humorlessly. “Well, then maybe you can tell me where the goddamn thing went.” 

“The brain is missing?” 

“I did his autopsy a week ago,” Amy stated. “I put his brain in formalin, and it’s been sitting on the counter right there for a fucking week.” She jabbed her finger at the counter. “ _Right there_.” 

She sat back on her knees and moved to run a hand through her hair, stopping when she remembered she was wearing both gloves and a scrub cap. She sighed, snapped off the latex gloves and tossed them toward the trash. One landed on the ground, the other draped over the side. 

“Whoa, careful,” Dana said pointlessly as Amy stood, perilously close to knocking over a glass beaker. “Have you checked everywhere?” 

“Yes, I’ve checked everywhere,” Amy retorted. “What does it look like I’m doing?”

As Dana moved closer to her friend, she noticed the shadows under Amy’s eyes and cheekbones. The scrubs that normally clung to her curves now hung loose on her frame. She looked as if she’d been drained by a parasite. With a surge of guilt, Dana wondered how long Amy had looked like this, how many times she’d seen her in passing: quickly greeting Amy at home before Dana collapsed into bed or making a pit stop to the morgue to pilfer some of Amy’s quality iced coffee she kept in the fridge. All while Amy was visibly falling apart. 

“This place makes me feel like I’m losing my fucking mind,” Amy muttered. 

Dana made a noncommittal noise. She felt it too; she’d even stopped coming in for coffee as frequently because her nerves were jangling so hard caffeine was redundant. She was now always braced for the worst-case scenario, trained to expect it. If she took the time to really look, she’d likely see the same gnawed-away look on herself as she did in Amy. 

“I need a smoke,” Amy declared as she collected her leather jacket. 

“You don’t smoke,” Dana said automatically. 

“Yeah. Well.” Amy didn’t meet Dana’s eyes as she lifted a pack of Lucky Strikes from her pocket. Without waiting to see if Dana followed, she left the morgue. The door swinging in front of Dana’s face stung, but she had seen Amy’s tempers before and knew the woman had a proclivity for dramatic display. Or maybe she was just that distracted. Regardless, Amy reminded Dana of so many nurses and residents that had unravelled before they quit their jobs at Silverwood. 

Dana followed Amy out of the hospital to the bench overlooking the graveyard, the preferred smoking area of anxious family members and addicted hospital staff. An instant coffee tin overflowing with butts gave off a damp, rotting-grass stench. Amy shook a few cigarettes loose in the pack and offered it to Dana, who shook her head. 

“Suit yourself,” Amy said. 

Just as Amy started to retract her hand, Dana impulsively said, “Wait,” and took one.

Dana looked down at the small object reminiscent of cold nights and taboo. She hadn’t smoked since med school, and even then, she never bought her own pack. When she placed it to her lips, Amy gave her a light with a satisfying Zippo click. Dana drew the poison into her lungs, and her mind was pleasantly blanketed with dopamine and norepinephrine. She quickly stopped noticing how foul the smoke tasted. 

A cloud of smoke from Amy drifted over her, and Dana could feel it settling on her skin and her hair, leaving a stench she would regret later. 

“I’m guessing Melissa doesn’t know about this new habit,” Dana ventured. 

“She’d kill me.” 

“Yes, she would.” 

Amy tipped her head back and blew a plume of smoke directly toward the exquisitely clear blue sky. She said, “Sometimes it just feels like this hospital was built on a black hole. Or the Bermuda Triangle.” 

“It certainly operates under the Law of Murphy,” Dana agreed.

“I don’t know, Dana… The pay is good here; the hours are good. When I work county shifts, they have me on twelve to sevens, and I have to receive the assistance of _Devon_.” 

“Is he still microwaving fish?” Dana asked. 

“In a _morgue_.” Amy’s laugh turned into a cough. 

“Only amateurs or seasoned chainsmokers cough like that,” Dana teased gently. 

“I’m a rookie,” Amy told her. “Never smoked before this month, actually.” She tapped ash on the grass and ground out the accompanying sparks with her shoe, a dutiful Californian reflex. 

“Never?” 

“I didn’t even try alcohol until a few years ago,” Amy admitted. “At first I didn’t want to get in trouble, and then I didn’t want to cloud my mind.” 

“Mmm.” Dana took another drag. “Melissa used to steal booze from our dad’s office until she got friends that could buy it for her. I wouldn’t have dared. She’s the only reason I drank in high school.” 

“The old fill it up with water technique?”

“You guessed it,” Dana confirmed. 

“Such a bad influence,” Amy said. 

“You have no idea.” 

Amy got serious suddenly. She sat up straight, looking directly at Dana. “Do you ever think that maybe Melissa was right?” 

“Let’s not get carried away,” Dana said lightly. “Melissa also believes diluted herbal tinctures with no active ingredients can have medicinal purposes.” 

Amy remained serious. “I mean, about this hospital.” 

“Are you a believer in bad vibes now?” Dana goaded but without energy. Her skin started to tingle from the nicotine, and she felt like she was floating. She took another puff, her heart rate increasing. 

“I’m serious, Dana. There’s something wrong with this place.” 

Dana pursed her lips, not wanting to hear it. She felt it, of course; everyone did. But how could one tell the difference between a cursed place or the cursed nature of the work? As Amy had said, what hospital had good vibes?

Dana had less confidence now than when she started her internship. She tripled-checked every dose she administered. Every time she made a stitch, she expected the needle to slip despite her steady hands. Every machine she used she expected to stop working. Every decision, every action was colored by the fact that she saw situations spiral out of control everywhere around her. She wasn’t even sure she had what it took to last in the field of medicine, if the pit of dread lodged in her stomach would ever dissipate. On some level, she’d relied on Amy’s Teflon demeanor to pretend their jobs were normal. 

As she smoked, she thought of Dr. Parish and his pills. A therapist and a benzodiazepine prescription would certainly be the healthier approach, but she understood what drove him to take drugs. It wasn’t much different from the impulse that compelled her to take a cigarette from Amy. 

“It’s not the first time it happened, you know,” Amy said suddenly. 

“What happened?” 

“A brain. Disappearing from the morgue. I talked to Nurse Lynch, and she was like, ‘Again?’ Apparently it’s happened twice since she’s been there. You would think it would be a bigger scandal, but I guess, who would find out if the hospital didn’t want it to get out? They just sent the bodies out like that. What else can you do, I guess.” Amy drew a tremulous drag on her cigarette, then crushed it out. 

“I’m already hearing them talk about Dr. Parish. Apparently, one of the other missing brains was from another patient of his who died during surgery.”

“The other hemorrhage…” Dana murmured. 

“So of course they’re looking at him,” Amy said. “I mean, a brain in a jar of formalin doesn’t just walk out of a morgue. And who would want to steal that in the first place?” 

“What about the other one? You said there were three stolen.” 

“Alzheimer’s patient. Lynch said it had happened once before her time too. Like I said, this place is fucked up.” 

Dana couldn’t deny that. The smell of burning plastic wafted up to her, and the tip of her index finger started to burn. The cigarette burned to the filter, a plume of noxious smoke curling up. She hastily crushed it and tossed on the overflowing tin, a monument to past anxieties. 

“I’ve been hearing things,” Amy stated. She looked at Dana, waiting for a reaction. 

“What kind of things?” Dana asked tentatively. 

“Like something is moving around in the walls.” 

“It’s an old building, Amy,” Dana said lightly. “You know there are rats.” 

“It doesn’t sound like rats to me.” 

“What does it sound like?” 

Amy pressed her lips together. “It sounds bigger than rats, okay? I don’t know what it is. But it’s not normal old building shit.” 

Dana chose her next words carefully. “Are you…hearing these noises outside the hospital too?” 

“I’m not crazy,” Amy snapped. 

“I never said you were.” 

“I know that’s what you’re thinking. I can see it on your face.” She pointed at Dana. “ _That_ face is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.” 

Dana tried to rearrange her face in a way that was less offensive to Amy. “I don’t think you’re crazy,” she said. “I’m just trying to understand.” 

“You’re not going to tell Melissa, are you? You know it’s in both our best interests that she doesn’t worry about us more than she already does.” 

Dana mimed sealing her lips. “Your secret is safe with me. This _and_ your new smoking habit.” 

It felt strange keeping secrets from her sister, the one person in the world in whom she confided, but Amy was her friend and was owed her loyalty as well. On a selfish level, she wasn’t prepared to deal with her sister’s nagging and hovering, despite it coming from a place of love.

Amy started to get up and then stopped, turning to Dana. “What the hell kind of paperwork do you have to fill out when a brain goes missing from your custody?” 

“Let’s go find out.” As she steeled herself to go back to work, she reached for Amy’s open jacket pocket and stole another cigarette, dropping it into the breast pocket of her scrubs. 


	16. Chapter 16

Pasteur County Crime Lab

Scully walked to a corner of the lab to answer her ringing cell phone. She only shared the space with one technician, and he was listening to bass-heavy music so loud the sound carried from his foam headphones across the room. Before answering, she waited for any indication he was interested in her conversation. He appeared completely absorbed in his work, and Scully admonished herself for her paranoia. 

“Scully, it’s me,” came the familiar voice on the other end of Scully’s phone. 

The perfect synchronicity of their timing was a small pleasure in an otherwise rotten day. “Hi, Mulder. I was just about to call you.” 

He didn’t ask why. “I’m coming to pick you up.”

“I—” she began. 

“Be outside in five.”

She frowned at the phone before lowering the antenna and snapping it shut. Getting hung up on was par for the course with Mulder, but he sounded brusque in the way that indicated he thought they were being wiretapped. Either he was getting paranoid or they genuinely needed to watch themselves, and the two were not mutually exclusive. 

She tidied her space and tossed her lab coat in the laundry, waved goodbye to the technician who didn’t even notice and walked outside to find Mulder already waiting for her in the idling rental car. 

By way of hello, Scully said, “It's a match,” as she opened the passenger seat door. “AB-negative blood type.” 

“That’s the rare one, right?”

“Yes. Less than 1% of the US population has this blood type.” 

Mulder navigated the car out of the parking lot and toward the freeway entrance. He asked, “You told anyone else yet?” 

“Just you,” Scully said. 

He nodded. 

“I can’t hold out for much longer. It’s common knowledge this test has same-day results.” 

“It’s not DNA, though,” Mulder said. 

“It’s not. But it doesn’t look good. And it wouldn’t for us, if it got out that we’re withholding evidence.” 

“Bad evidence, Scully. Planted evidence.” 

She regarded her partner: the way his left leg tapped, the manic edge in his eyes as he glanced at her, the apparent tension in his shoulders. 

“That’s not all…” She paused before continuing. “I found a trace fiber on the tissue. It appears to be a synthetic-cotton blend commonly used in uniforms. Want to guess what color?” 

Mulder slammed a fist on the steering wheel. Scully didn’t flinch. She was grateful they were in a car, knowing in any other location he would have likely punched a wall or a mirror. 

“It’s good news for us, Mulder. It means we have a chance of proving the evidence was planted. They assured me they didn’t touch the object before I arrived.” 

Mulder didn’t respond, glowering darkly at the road.

“Well, what about you? Did you get anything today?” Scully pulled down the mirror as she spoke. Her mascara flaked into black freckles under her eyes, and her lipstick had worn off in the middle. Her skin looked pale and dull, but she was certain even a touch of blush would give her a clownish appearance. She felt like Bette Davis in _Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?_ , never washing her face but reapplying her makeup each day. 

“You could say that,” he huffed. “My first interview was with the granddaughter of one of the Thornton Experiment victims. Took me a while to convince her I was just there to hear her story; the woman was not inclined to trust the police, and I can’t blame her. She grew up hearing this story from her grandfather as he bounced her on his knee.

“Anyway, she ended up telling me everything she’d been told. As you can imagine, it was a nightmare. They had to isolate the rabies patients, which meant cramming them into a single room with multiple beds. Granted, that’s how many hospitals operated back then, but these were patients that should have each been isolated. Instead, they were placed together, watching each other descend into the disease. There were constant violent outbursts. The nurses could barely keep up with any of it. And you know what else she told me?” 

She didn’t bother trying to answer. 

“The one thing no one seems to mention when they talk about these experiments…that piece of shit would choose his victims deliberately, finding the ones he thought would be the least likely to ever see justice: African-Americans, immigrants, homeless people, women being held for mental health issues.” 

He didn’t stop to take a breath. “It’s not like that’s a surprise. It’s one of the oldest American traditions both for illegal medical experiments and serial killers, from the Tuskegee experiments to Jeffrey Dahmer. Even in the early experiments, he’s operating like a serial killer rather than what we usually see in unethical experimentation. He’s a singular malice rather than a group of supposedly well-meaning scientists telling themselves they’re working for the greater good.

“And of course, his methodology worked. Those experiments went on for the better part of a year and none of those victims saw anything close to justice. Shit, Scully, I hope he’s alive so I can put a bullet in his brain myself.” 

She knew he was not being hyperbolic. 

“So, anyway. Her grandmother was okay for a couple of weeks. At first the hospital allowed visiting hours, when they would carefully move the patient into a different room where the patient and family could see each other. The grandfather always used to talk about one nurse in particular—when they were no longer allowed to visit, Nurse Adelaide assured him that she would take excellent care of his wife until the end, and she always took her time with him when he came to ask for a status update.” 

“So you looked up Nurse Adelaide,” Scully prompted. 

“Yup. It turned out she died of old age, but her younger sister is still alive, and the two were very close. The sister said the conditions the patients were kept in tore Adelaide up, and she always wished she’d done more at the time. Adelaide had mentioned some very interesting things about the day the hospital shut down for the first time. Son of a bitch!” Mulder swerved into another lane as a car cut him off on the freeway. He continued, “The hospital administrators had started to evacuate the patients who did not have rabies at this point. One day, Adelaide comes in to work, and everyone was told that the government was going to handle it from now on as it was a public health crisis. Of course there were a lot of questions, and it was complete chaos, but Adelaide noticed that the two janitors remained in the hospital as everyone was sent home.” 

“They had been asked to stay.” 

“That’s what Adelaide thought,” he said. “And why would they if the feds were about to swoop in? They had no medical experience, and everyone else was being evacuated for their safety. The hospital had been regularly cleaned up until this point. Other than the rabies room, it was clean.” 

“Let me guess, that’s who we're going to see.” 

“Ding ding ding. Zachariah Lambert. He’s living out the rest of his days at a nursing home down in Ukiah.” 

An hour south, Scully thought. At least that would be two hours before she’d have to face the sheriff to report the findings of the experiment. 

“You think he was involved in some kind of cover up?” Scully ventured. 

“I guess we’ll find out.” 

* * *

Black Oak Nursing Home

Ukiah, CA

Visiting hours were almost over by the time they arrived late that afternoon, but Mulder sweet-talked the receptionist into making an exception, while Scully tugged at her collar, longing to take off her jacket. The humid air smelled like baby powder left to simmer on the stove, and Scully was reminded yet again that she’d been forced to skip her morning shower as sweat started to make her clothes tacky. 

After donning visitor badges—“Hello My Name Is” stickers with their names printed in Sharpie—they were directed to the common room where they found a group of elderly people positioned around a TV watching Jeopardy. Two of them appeared to be invested while others were asleep or stared at the screen blankly. 

“We’re looking for Zachariah Lambert,” Mulder interrupted after greeting the group. 

A woman with bright, unnaturally orange hair eyed them suspiciously. “Are you salespeople? They’re not supposed to let salespeople in here anymore.” 

Mulder held up his badge. “We’re with the FBI, ma’am.” 

“Oh goodness.” The woman put a hand to her mouth. “Is he in trouble?” 

“No, ma’am,” Scully told her. “We just need to ask him a couple of questions.” 

“That’s him over there.” She pointed a wavering finger to the furthest corner in the room where a man in an armchair sat next to an open window with a paperback in his lap—a good sign that his cognition remained strong. 

Scully thanked the woman, and Mulder grabbed two chairs from a card table with an abandoned Monopoly game. As she came closer, she was pleased to see the man had a view of a small green oasis tucked away behind the building. 

Zachariah Lambert placed a bookmark in his drugstore mystery novel and removed his glasses, letting them dangle back a worn leather strap. His thick white hair was just starting to thin, and a sharp bone structure belied a once-handsome face.

“I wasn’t expecting any visitors today,” he said in a deep, rumbling voice. 

“We’re Agents Scully and Mulder with the FBI,” she told him, flashing her badge. “We’re hoping you would be willing to answer a few questions for us.” 

Lambert didn’t reply. Instead, he took a sip of water, and Scully noticed that his hands shook. It was impossible to tell if it was age or nerves that caused the tremor. 

Mulder positioned the chairs in front of Lambert, and they both sat. 

“Do you know why we’re here?” Mulder asked. 

Lambert seemed to consider his words carefully before responding. “There’s only one reason the FBI would be visiting me.” 

“What reason would that be?” Scully smoothed open a fresh page on her notebook and clicked her ballpoint. 

“I kept my nose clean my whole life,” Lambert said. “At least I tried to.” He set the cup back down and inhaled deeply. His nose whistled faintly. “You’re here about the experiments.” 

“That’s right,” Scully said. 

“Why now? After all these years?” 

Scully glanced quickly at Mulder before answering, “I’m not sure if you’ve seen the news lately, but there were a number of bodies discovered buried outside Silverwood General. We’re hoping to learn more about the experiments to rule out a possible connection.” 

Lambert flinched. “New bodies?”

“Some of them are.” 

Mulder said, “We understand you worked at Silverwood General between 1941 and its closure in 1950. Is that correct?” 

Lambert nodded. 

Scully said, “We need to know everything you can tell us about the experiments and your memories of that time.” 

“Where would you like me to begin?” His voice sounded thick and phlegmy.

“Why don’t you start by telling us about your impression of Thornton?” Scully asked, easing him into the interview. “You must have seen him around the hospital.” 

She waited for him to respond, pen poised. 

“Yes and no,” he said. “He kept to himself, more than any of the other doctors. Most of the doctors didn’t give me a second glance, I was used to that, but Thornton… I don’t know how to describe it. Maybe it’s just looking back, but he seemed to only look at people in terms of how they were useful to him. He barely spoke to anyone around the hospital, but I think people just assumed it was because he was brilliant; he had other things on his mind.

“He seemed to spend more time in his office than the other doctors. I would see him working late. He had this weird lamp in his office. I would see green light under his door when I mopped the hall outside.” 

“How did you feel about your job?” Mulder asked. 

“I liked the people. The nurses were kind to me, always said ‘hi’ in the halls. But the hospital…”

“What about it?” 

Lambert looked directly at Mulder, fear visible in his clear brown eyes. He said, “That place wasn’t right. It never was.” 

“How so?” 

“Well, I didn’t have much of a frame of reference,” Lambert admitted. “I never worked at a hospital before. Never did since. But the first year I worked there, two people got struck by lightning in the parking lot. Two in one year. What are the odds of that?” 

“Astronomically low,” Scully agreed. 

“There were so many code blues,” Lambert continued. “They would talk about it in these hushed voices. _Another one_. And the building… it was built bad. The lights would go out, the heating would stop working—sometimes it would be too hot, sometimes it would be too cold. The elevator got stuck so much that folks stopped using it entirely. We felt like everything was always about to go wrong.” He paused, swallowing. “Sometimes I thought I had the best job in the hospital. My only responsibility was to clean.” 

“Why do you think the hospital was like that?” Mulder asked. 

“Poor construction, mostly,” Lambert said. “But sometimes it just felt like one of those places that attracted bad things.” 

“When did the experiments start?” Scully prodded gently.

“We had our first rabies case in ’49. Someone came in with symptoms after being bitten by a raccoon, and Thornton was their physician. Rabies cases were exceptionally rare at that time, and it was all anyone talked about for a while. The patient died, of course.” 

“He didn’t infect the first rabies patient?” Scully knew the answer, but she wanted to hear it from the former janitor. 

Lambert shook his head. “I don’t see how. Every rabies case after that was a patient or nurse in the hospital. We were told it was bats, that we couldn’t even feel their bites. Not that we ever saw a single bite. Some people said they did, but we had exterminators in every week, and they never caught a thing.

“Looking back, we know he was selecting patients who were supposed to be in the hospital for days or weeks, but we didn’t see the pattern back then. It’s not like we expected bats to be choosy about their victims.”

“How soon was the second case after the first?” 

“Oh, I can’t remember. A few weeks, maybe? A month? And after that, people started to fall ill all the time. It was like each day was a new case. They ended up placing all the victims together to attempt to contain it, and then even a couple of the nurses fell ill.”

“How did the rest of the hospital respond?” 

“Everyone who worked there was terrified, but Thornton assured us all that human-to-human rabies transmission was practically unheard of. It was the bats we needed to worry about. Always the bats.” 

“When did the rest of the town find out?”

Lambert broke down into a coughing fit, and Scully handed him his water glass. After a long pause, he continued, “It didn’t take long for word to spread. Pretty soon our waiting room was filled with people complaining they couldn’t swallow, couldn’t stop twitching. Parents started bringing in their disobedient children, convinced their behavior was a sign of rabies. But Thornton dismissed those cases quickly.”

“Did he confirm they weren’t infected before he sent them away?” Scully queried.

“I don’t know. I imagine he evaluated them before sending them on their way.” 

“At this point he was the head of the rabies ward?” 

“Yes. I don’t know if the administrators appointed him, or if it just happened. But he seemed to think it was an opportunity. I remember reading interviews where he’d talk about how the rabies virus would unlock mysteries about the human body. That if he could figure out how the virus works on the brain, he would discover something new about immune response.”

“Did you know he was studying them?”

“Sure, we all did. As far as we were concerned, he was an infectious disease specialist who was trying to help his patients and learn more about such an…evil…virus.” He lifted an empty water glass to his lips and set it back down. Scully ran to a pitcher and filled it up for him. 

“Thank you,” he said, taking a big gulp. “I don’t use that word lightly, evil. But the way that virus takes its host and destroys them…”

“You encountered the victims?” Mulder asked.

“Sure I did. Someone had to clean the ward, didn’t they? The things I saw in there. The look in their eyes. Rage and emptiness. Those are the only words I can think to describe it. I would see them every night when I closed my eyes.”

Scully imagined exactly what the rabies ward had looked like, piecing together a tableau from footage she’d seen of late-stage rabies victims and overcrowded wartime hospitals.

Lambert said, “But Thornton, in the times I ran into him…he looked at them and he just…he lit up. I thought, maybe that was just how scientists viewed the world sometimes—not seeing the people but the possibilities they’d represented to them.” 

“For some scientists, yes,” Scully conceded, glancing at Mulder. 

“He even asked the morgue attendant to give him the brains for study. We didn’t know until later that he was keeping his murder trophies in plain sight. It got worse when the new rooms were built.” 

“New rooms?” Mentally, Scully flipped through the blueprints she’d studied last night. 

“The victims didn’t act aggressively for very long before they slipped into a coma, but when it happened, they would need to be isolated from the others. The hospital brought in contractors—I found out later they usually built prisons—to build rooms that would both keep the patients from being able to leave and allow for observation. He would spend hours just watching them when the symptoms started to present.” 

“How was it discovered that Thornton was purposefully infecting people?” Mulder asked. 

“I wasn’t there,” Lambert said. “But word spread among the hospital staff that one of the patients had a moment of lucidity and started screaming “he did it to me,” something like that. The administrators searched his office and found vials of an unlabeled substance in his drawer. He told them it was a vaccine, but he’d never mentioned anything about a vaccine before. As he was trying to explain himself, he kept compulsively licking his lips. He couldn’t stop, even when they asked him to. They weren’t able to trick him to go into the observation rooms, but an orderly managed to shut him in the rabies ward with the majority of the patients. 

“After that, the remaining staff were sent home,” he concluded. 

“Including you?” Scully supplied. 

Lambert stared out the window for a long moment, watching a hummingbird drink from a feeder with its long, slender beak. They waited until he was ready to continue. 

“I was asked to stay by the dean of the hospital and two administrators. The other janitor stayed behind as well. They had us sign a non-disclosure agreement, told me it was a matter of public health that the town wasn’t alarmed by what happened. People need to trust hospitals, they need to trust their doctors. Nothing would erode trust more than knowledge of what happened at my hospital.” 

“What did they want you to do?” Mulder asked. 

Lambert sighed. “I’m a man of my word, Agent Mulder. But the people I signed that paper for are all dead now, and I think the truth deserves to come out. These days, I have nothing to lose.” He kept his gaze fixed out the window as he said, “One thing I want you to know first… Everything I did at that time, I did for Molly. She was my girl then, my wife later. We both grew up without two dimes to rub together, and all I wanted was to give her a good life. That’s all…” 

He trailed off, his mouth hanging open slightly, his eyes faintly wet. 

“We understand,” Mulder told him.

“They offered me money. More money than I’d expected to see in a lifetime. Enough for a house of our own, a car. Molly could go to college like she always wanted, and so could our children. We could afford to think about starting a family. I didn’t care what my boss wanted me to do. I was thinking about how I was going to go straight to the jewelry shop after and buy Molly an engagement ring. In one afternoon, those people made our whole future possible. That’s what I thought at the time, at least…

“I was to wait six weeks for further instruction about a small cleanup project. That’s what they called it. Thirteen lives, and it was ‘a small cleanup project.’” Lambert pinched his eyes shut and drew in a sharp breath. His voice began to waver as he continued, “They told me the government had instructed them to cremate the bodies. That’s what we told the local mortician. We told him the bodies were in cold storage and the freezer broke down, so needed to be disposed of safely, with haste, and he was not to remove them from their body bags.

“We earned our money that day. It wasn’t easy work… I’ll never forget how they looked. The smell in that room. The misery. We wheeled them up to a refrigerated truck and sealed the entrances to the basement floor.” 

“Up?” Scully asked. 

“Up to the first floor.” 

“Silverwood General doesn’t have a basement,” Scully said. 

“It did when I was there,” Lambert contradicted.

Scully glanced at her partner, whose eyebrows raised. 

Lambert explained, “There was a passage on the west side that was meant for transporting patients on beds without having to rely on the elevator.” 

“How many entrances did you have to seal?” Scully asked. 

“The west side, like I mentioned. There was also a stairwell on the east side and an elevator in the center.” 

She took hasty notes. “And you sealed them completely?” 

“Yes, ma’am. With concrete.”

“Thank you, sir. You’ve been very helpful.” Scully started to shut her notebook. She could feel Mulder shifting to her side, equally eager to pursue the new lead. 

“I’m surprised you haven’t asked about the condition I found Thornton in,” Lambert stated.

“How did you find him?” Mulder asked. 

“I didn’t,” Lambert responded. “I couldn’t find a trace of him. Or his trophies.” 


End file.
